IRLF 


M5    732 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 


GIFT  OF 

PROFESSOR 
LEON  J.  RICHARDSON 


Hussell  !LotuclU 


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HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY, 
BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK. 


HEARTSEASE  AND  RUE 


BY 


JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL 


BOSTON   AND   NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND   COMPANY 

(£fce  fttoersi&e  #«# 
1888 


Copyright,  1888, 
BT  JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL. 

All  rights  reserved. 


GIF: 


EIGHTH    THOUSAND. 


The  Riverside  Prtst,  Cambridge: 
Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  H.  0.  Houghton  &  Co. 


It 


;  wayside  where  we  pass  bloom  few 
Gay  plants  of  heartsease,  more  of  saddening  rue; 
So  life  is  mingled;  so  should  poems  be 
That  speak  a  conscious  word  to  you  and  me. 


301 


CONTENTS. 


FRIENDSHIP. 

PAGE 

AGASSIZ 1 

To  HOLMES  ON  ms  SEVENTY-FIFTH  BIRTHDAY       .  23 

IN  A  COPY  OF  OMAK  KHAYYAM    ....  26 

ON   RECEIVING   A  COPY   OF   MR.   AUSTIN    DOBSON's 

"OLD  WORLD  IDYLLS" 27 

To  C.  F.  BRADFORD  ON  THE  GIFT  OF  A  MEER 
SCHAUM  PIPE 29 

BANKSIDE 32 

JOSEPH  WINLOCK 36 

SONNET.     To  FANNY  ALEXANDER  .        .        .        .37 

JEFFRIES  WYMAN 38 

To  A  FRIEND 39 

WITH  AN  ARMCHAIR 40 

E.  G.  DER .41 

BON  VOYAGE! 42 

To  WHITTIER  ON  HIS  SEVENTY-FIFTH  BIRTHDAY    .  43 

ON  AN  AUTUMN  SKETCH  OF  H.  G.  WILD       .        .  44 

To  Miss  D.  T 45 

WITH  A  COPY  OF  AUCASSIN  AND  NICOLETE  .        .  46 

ON  PLANTING  A  TREE  AT  INVERARA           .           .           .  47 

AN  EPISTLE  TO  GEORGE  WILLIAM  CURTIS    .        .  49 

II. 

SENTIMENT. 

ENDYMION     .        ...        .        .        .        .  61 

THE  BLACK  PREACHER                                     .        .  70 


vi  CONTENTS. 

ARCADIA  REDIVIVA 74 

THE  NEST 7g 

A  YOUTHFUL  EXPERIMENT  IN  ENGLISH  HEXAM 
ETERS    81 

BIRTHDAY  VERSES 83 

ESTRANGEMENT 85 

PHCEBE 86 

DAS  EWIG-WEIBLICHB 89 

THE  RECALL 91 

ABSENCE 02 

MONNA  LISA 93 

THE  OPTIMIST 94 

ON  BURNING  SOME  OLD  LETTERS  ....  96 

THE  PROTEST 99 

THE  PETITION 100 

FACT  OR  FANCY  ? 101 

AGRO-DOLCE 103 

THE  BROKEN  TRYST 104 

CASA  SIN  ALMA 105 

A  CHRISTMAS  CAROL 106 

MY  PORTRAIT  GALLERY       .....      108 

PAOLO  TO  FRANCESCA 109 

SONNET.     SCOTTISH  BORDER       .        .        .        .110 
SONNET.     ON  BEING  ASKED  FOR  AN  AUTOGRAPH 

IN  VENICE Ill 

THE  DANCING  BEAR 112 

THE  MAPLE 113 

NlGHTWATCHES 114 

DEATH  o*  QUEEN  MERCEDES          .        .        .        .115 

PRISON  OF  CERVANTES 116 

To  A  LADY  PLAYING  ON  THE  CITHERN    .        .        .117 

THE  EYE'S  TREASURY 118 

PESSIMOPTIMISM 119 

THE  BRAKES 120 

A  FOREBODING 121 


CONTENTS.  vii 

III. 
FANCY. 

UNDER  THE  OCTOBER  MAPLES         ....  125 

LOVE'S  CLOCK 127 

ELEANOR  MAKES  MACAROONS 129 

TELEPATHY  . 131 

SCHERZO 132 

"  FRANCISCUS  DE  VERULAMIO  sic  COGITAVIT  "      .      134 

AUSPEX 136 

THE  PREGNANT  COMMENT 137 

THE  LESSON 139 

SCIENCE  AND  POETRY 141 

A  NEW  YEAR'S  GREETING 142 

THE  DISCOVERY 143 

WITH  A  SEASHELL 144 

THE  SECRET 146 

IV. 

HUMOR  AND  SATIRE. 

FITZ  ADAM'S  STORY 149 

THE  ORIGIN  OF  DIDACTIC  POETRY  .        .        .        .173 

THE  FLYING  DUTCHMAN 177 

CREDIDIMUS  JOVEM  REGNARE 180 

TEMPORA  MUTANTUR 189 

IN  THE  HALF-WAY  HOUSE 192 

AT  THE  BURNS  CENTENNIAL          ....      196 

IN  AN  ALBUM 205 

AT  THE  COMMENCEMENT  DINNER,  1866        .        .      207 
A  PARABLE  .  212 


viii  CONTENTS. 

V. 

EPIGRAMS. 

SAYINGS 215 

INSCRIPTIONS. 

FOR  A  BELL  AT  CORNELL  UNIVERSITY      .        .216 
FOR  A  MEMORIAL  WINDOW  TO  SIR  WALTER 

RALEIGH        .        .        .   •     .        .        .        .216 
PROPOSED    FOR    A    SOLDIERS'   AND    SAILORS' 
MONUMENT  IN  BOSTON          .        .        .        .216 

A  MISCONCEPTION 217 

THE  Boss 217 

SUN-WORSHEP 217 

CHANGED  PERSPECTIVE 217 

WITH  A  PAIR  OF  GLOVES  LOST  IN  A  WAGER         .      218 
SIXTY-EIGHTH  BIRTHDAY 218 


I. 

FRIENDSHIP. 


POEMS. 


AGASSIZ. 

Come 

Dicesti  egli  ebbef  non  viv'  egli  ancora? 
Non  fiere  gli  occhi  suoi  lo  dolce  lome  ? 

I.       1. 

THE  electric  nerve,  whose  instantaneous  thrill 
Makes  next-door  gossips  of  the  antipodes, 
Confutes  poor  Hope's  last  fallacy  of  ease,  — 
The  distance  that  divided  her  from  ill : 
Earth  sentient  seems  again  as  when  of  old 

The  horny  foot  of  Pan 
Stamped,  and  the  conscious  horror  ran 
Beneath  men's  feet  through  all  her  fibres  cold  : 
Space's  blue  walls  are  mined ;  we  feel  the  throe 
From  underground  of  our  night-mantled  foe  : 

The  flame-winged  feet 

Of  Trade's  new  Mercury,  that  dry-shod  run 
Through  briny  abysses  dreamless  of  the  sun, 

Are  mercilessly  fleet, 
And  at  a  bound  annihilate 
Ocean's  prerogative  of  short  reprieve  ; 

Surely  ill  news  might  wait, 


2  AGASSIZ. 

And  man  be  patient  of  delay  to  grieve : 

Letters  have  sympathies 
And  tell-tale  faces  that  reveal, 
To  senses  finer  than  the  eyes, 
Their  errand's  purport  ere  we  break  the  seal ; 
They  wind  a  sorrow  round  with  circumstance 
To  stay  its  feet,  nor  all  unwarned  displace 
The  veil  that  darkened  from  our  sidelong  glance 

The  inexorable  face  : 
But  now  Fate  stuns  as  with  a  mace  ; 
The  savage  of  the  skies,  that  men  have  caught 
And  some  scant  use  of  language  taught, 

Tells  only  what  he  must,  — 
The  steel-cold  fact  in  one  laconic  thrust. 

2. 

So  thought  I,  as,  with  vague,  mechanic  eyes, 
I  scanned  the  festering  news  we  half  despise 

Yet  scramble  for  no  less, 
And  read  of  public  scandal,  private  fraud, 
Crime  flaunting  scot-free  while  the  mob  applaud, 
Office  made  vile  to  bribe  unworthiness, 

And  all  the  unwholesome  mess 
The  Land  of  Honest  Abraham  serves  of  late 
To  teach  the  Old  World  how  to  wait, 

When  suddenly, 
As  happens  if  the  brain,  from  overweight 

Of  blood,  infect  the  eye, 
Three  tiny  words  grew  lurid  as  I  read, 
And  reeled  commingling :  Ayassiz  is  dead. 


AGASSIZ.  3 

As  when,  beneath  the  street's  familiar  jar, 
An  earthquake's  alien  omen  rumbles  far, 
Men  listen  and  forebode,  I  hung  my  head, 

And  strove  the  present  to  recall, 
As  if  the  blow  that  stunned  were  yet  to  fall. 

3. 

Uprooted  is  our  mountain  oak, 
That  promised  long  security  of  shade 
And  brooding-place  for  many  a  winged  thought ; 

Not  by  Time's  softly-warning  stroke 
With  pauses  of  relenting  pity  stayed, 
But  ere  a  root  seemed  sapt,  a  bough  decayed, 
From  sudden  ambush  by  the  whirlwind  caught 
And  in  his  broad  maturity  betrayed ! 


Well  might  I,  as  of  old,  appeal  to  you, 

O  mountains  woods  and  streams, 
To  help  us  mourn  him,  for  ye  loved  him  too ; 

But  simpler  moods  befit  our  modern  themes, 
And  no  less  perfect  birth  of  nature  can, 
Though  they  yearn  tow'rd  him,  sympathize  with 

man, 
Save  as  dumb  fellow-prisoners  through  a  wall ; 

Answer  ye  rather  to  my  call, 
Strong  poets  of  a  more  unconscious  day, 
When  Nature  spake  nor  sought  nice  reasons  why, 
Too  much  for  softer  arts  forgotten  since 
That  teach  our  forthright  tongue  to  lisp  and  mince, 


4  AGASSIZ. 

And  drown  in  music  the  heart's  bitter  cry ! 
Lead  me  some  steps  in  your  directer  way, 
Teach  me  those  words  that  strike  a  solid  root 

Within  the  ears  of  men  ; 
Ye  chiefly,  virile  both  to  think  and  feel, 
Deep-chested  Chapman  and  firm-footed  Ben,  — 
For  he  was  masculine  from  head  to  heel. 
Nay,  let  himself  stand  undiminished  by 
With  those  clear  parts  of  him  that  will  not  die. 
Himself  from  out  the  recent  dark  I  claim 
To  hear,  and,  if  I  flatter  him,  to  blame ; 
To  show  himself,  as  still  I  seem  to  see, 
A  mortal,  built  upon  the  antique  plan, 
Brimful  of  lusty  blood  as  ever  ran, 
And  taking  life  as  simply  as  a  tree ! 
To  claim  my  foiled  good-bye  let  him  appear, 
Large-limbed  and  human  as  I  saw  him  near, 
Loosed  from  the  stiffening  uniform  of  fame : 
And  let  me  treat  him  largely :  I  should  fear, 
(If  with  too  prying  lens  I  chanced  to  err, 
Mistaking  catalogue  for  character,) 
His  wise  forefinger  raised  in  smiling  blame. 
Nor  would  I  scant  him  with  judicial  breath 
And  turn  mere  critic  in  an  epitaph  ; 
I  choose  the  wheat,  incurious  of  the  chaff 
That  swells  fame  living,  chokes  it  after  death, 
And  would  but  memorize  the  shining  half 
Of  his  large  nature  that  was  turned  to  me : 
Fain  had  I  joined  with  those  that  honored  him 
With  eyes  that  darkened  because  his  were  dim, 
And  now  been  silent :  but  it  might  not  be. 


AGASS1Z.  5 

II.     1. 

In  some  the  genius  is  a  thing  apart, 

A  pillared  hermit  of  the  brain, 
Hoarding  with  incommunicable  art 
Its  intellectual  gain ; 

Man's  web  of  circumstance  and  fate 

They  from  their  perch  of  self  observe, 
Indifferent  as  the  figures  on  a  slate 

Are  to  the  planet's  sun-swung  curve 

Whose  bright  returns  they  calculate ; 

Their  nice  adjustment,  part  to  part, 
Were  shaken  from  its  serviceable  mood 
By  unpremeditated  stirs  of  heart 

Or  jar  of  human  neighborhood  : 
Some  find  their  natural  selves,  and  only  then, 
In  furloughs  of  divine  escape  from  men, 
And  when,  by  that  brief  ecstasy  left  bare, 

Driven  by  some  instinct  of  desire, 
They  wander  worldward,  't  is  to  blink  and  stare, 
Like  wild  things  of  the  wood  about  a  fire, 
Dazed  by  the  social  glow  they  cannot  share ; 

His  nature  brooked  no  lonely  lair, 
But  basked  and  bourgeoned  in  copartnery, 
Companionship,  and  open-windowed  glee  : 
He  knew,  for  he  had  tried, 

Those  speculative  heights  that  lure 
The  unpractised  foot,  impatient  of  a  guide, 

Tow'rd  ether  too  attenuately  pure 
For  sweet  unconscious  breath,  though   dear   to 
pride, 


6  AGA8SIZ. 

But  better  loved  the  foothold  sure 
Of  paths  that  wind  by  old  abodes  of  men 
Who  hope  at  last  the  churchyard's  peace  secure, 
And  follow  time-worn  rules,  that  them  suffice, 
Learned  from  their  sires,  traditionally  wise, 
Careful  of  honest  custom's  how  and  when  ; 
His  mind,  too  brave  to  look  on  Truth  askance, 
No  more  those  habitudes  of  faith  could  share, 
But,  tinged  with  sweetness  of  the  old  Swiss  manse, 
Lingered  around  them  still  and  fain  would  spare. 
Patient  to  spy  a  sullen  egg  for  weeks, 
The  enigma  of  creation  to  surprise, 
His  truer  instinct  sought  the  life  that  speaks 
Without  a  mystery  from  kindly  eyes ; 
In  no  self-spun  cocoon  of  prudence  wound, 
He  by  the  touch  of  men  was  best  inspired, 
And  caught  his  native  greatness  at  rebound 
From  generosities  itself  had  fired  ; 
Then  how  the  heat  through  every  fibre  ran, 
Felt  in  the  gathering  presence  of  the  man, 
While  the  apt  word  and  gesture  came  unbid ! 
Virtues  and  faults  it  to  one  metal  wrought, 

Fined  all  his  blood  to  thought, 
And  ran  the  molten  man  in  all  he  said  or  did. 
All  Tully's  rules  and  all  Quintilian's  too 
He  by  the  light  of  listening  faces  knew, 
And  his  rapt  audience  all  unconscious  lent 
Their  own  roused  force  to  make  him  eloquent ; 
Persuasion  fondled  in  his  look  and  tone ; 
Our  speech   (with   strangers  prudish)   he  could 
bring 


AGASSIZ.  7 

To  find  new  charm  in  accents  not  her  own  ; 

Her  coy  constraints  and  icy  hindrances 

Melted  upon  his  lips  to  natural  ease, 

As  a  brook's  fetters  swell  the  dance  of  spring. 

Nor  yet  all  sweetness :  not  in  vain  he  wore, 

Nor  in  the  sheath  of  ceremony,  controlled 

By  velvet  courtesy  or  caution  cold, 

That  sword  of  honest  anger  prized  of  old, 

But,  with  two-handed  wrath, 
If  baseness  or  pretension  crossed  his  path, 
Struck  once  nor  needed  to  strike  more. 

2. 

His  magic  was  not  far  to  seek,  — 
He  was  so  human  !     Whether  strong  or  weak, 
Far  from  his  kind  he  neither  sank  nor  soared, 
But  sate  an  equal  guest  at  every  board  : 
No  beggar  ever  felt  him  condescend, 
No  prince  presume  ;  for  still  himself  he  bare 
At  manhood's  simple  level,  and  where'er 
He  met  a  stranger,  there  he  left  a  friend. 
How  large  an  aspect !  nobly  unsevere, 
With  freshness  round  him  of  Olympian  cheer, 
Like  visits  of  those  earthly  gods  he  came  ; 
His  look,  wherever  its  good-fortune  fell, 
Doubled  the  feast  without  a  miracle, 
And  on  the  hearthstone  danced  a  happier  flame ; 
Philemon's  crabbed  vintage  grew  benign  ; 
Amphitryon's  gold-juice  humanized  to  wine. 


8  AGASS1Z. 

III.      1. 

The  garrulous  memories 
Gather  again  from  all  their  far-flown  nooks, 
Singly  at  first,  and  then  by  twos  and  threes, 
Then  in  a  throng  innumerable,  as  the  rooks 

Thicken  their  twilight  files 
Tow'rd  Tintern's  gray  repose  of  roofless  aisles  : 
Once  more  I  see  him  at  the  table's  head 
When  Saturday  her  monthly  banquet  spread 

To  scholars,  poets,  wits, 
All    choice,    some    famous,   loving    things,    not 

names, 

And  so  without  a  twinge  at  others'  fames ; 
Such  company  as  wisest  moods  befits, 
Yet  with  no  pedant  blindness  to  the  worth 

Of  un deliberate  mirth, 
Natures  benignly  mixed  of  air  and  earth, 
Now  with  the  stars  and  now  with  equal  zest 
Tracing  the  eccentric  orbit  of  a  jest. 

2. 

I  see  in  vision  the  warm-lighted  hall, 
The  living  and  the  dead  I  see  again, 
And  but  my  chair  is  empty ;  'mid  them  all 
'T  is  I  that  seem  the  dead  :  they  all  remain 
Immortal,  changeless  creatures  of  the  brain  : 
Well  nigh  I  doubt  which  world  is  real  most, 
Of  sense  or  spirit,  to  the  truly  sane ; 
In  this  abstraction  it  were  light  to  deem 


AGASSIZ.  9 

Myself  the  figment  of  some  stronger  dream ; 
They  are  the  real  things,  and  I  the  ghost 
That  glide  unhindered  through  the  solid  door, 
Vainly  for  recognition  seek  from  chair  to  chair, 
And  strive  to  speak  and  am  but  futile  air, 
As  truly  most  of  us  are  little  more. 

3. 

Him  most  I  see  whom  we  most  dearly  miss, 

The  latest  parted  thence, 
His  features  poised  in  genial  armistice 
And  armed  neutrality  of  self-defence 
Beneath  the  forehead's  walled  preeminence, 
While  Tyro,  plucking  facts  with  careless  reach, 
Settles  off-hand  our  human  how  and  whence ; 
The  long-trained  veteran  scarcely  wincing  hears 
The  infallible  strategy  of  volunteers 
Making  through  Nature's  walls  its  easy  breach, 
And  seems  to  learn  where  he  alone  could  teach. 
Ample  and  ruddy,  the  board's  end  he  fills 
As  he  our  fireside  were,  our  light  and  heat, 
Centre  where  minds  diverse  and  various  skills 
Find  their  warm  nook  and  stretch  unhampered 

feet; 

I  see  the  firm  benignity  of  face, 
Wide-smiling  champaign,  without  tameness  sweet, 
The  mass  Teutonic  toned  to  Gallic  grace, 
The  eyes  whose  sunshine  runs  before  the  lips 
While  Holmes's  rockets  curve  their  long  ellipse, 
And  burst  in  seeds  of  fire  that  burst  again 
To  drop  in  scintillating  rain. 


10  AGASSIZ. 


There  too  the  face  half-rustic,  half-divine, 
Self-poised,  sagacious,  freaked  with  humor 

fine, 

Of  him  who  taught  us  not  to  mow  and  mope 

About  our  fancied  selves,  but  seek  our  scope 

In  Nature's  world  and  Man's,  nor  fade  to  hollow 

trope, 
Content  with  our  New  World  and  timely 

bold 

To  challenge  the  o'ermastery  of  the  Old ; 
Listening  with  eyes  averse  I  see  him  sit 
Pricked  with  the  cider  of  the  Judge's  wit 
(Ripe-hearted    homebrew,  fresh   and   fresh 

again), 
While  the  wise  nose's  firm-built  aquiline 

Curves  sharper  to  restrain 
The  merriment  whose  most  unruly  moods 
Pass  not  the  dumb  laugh  learned  in  listening 

woods 

Of  silence-shedding  pine : 
Hard  by  is  he  whose  art's  consoling  spell 
Hath  given  both  worlds  a  whiff  of  asphodel, 
His  look  still  vernal  'mid  the  wintry  ring 
Of  petals  that  remember,  not  foretell, 
The  paler  primrose  of  a  second  spring. 

5. 

And  more  there  are  :  but  other  forms  arise 
And  seen  as  clear,  albeit  with  dimmer  eyes : 


AGASSIZ.  11 

First  he  from  sympathy  still  held  apart 
By  shrinking  over-eagerness  of  heart, 
Cloud    charged  with   searching  fire,  whose 

shadow's  sweep 

Heightened  mean  things  with  sense  of  brood 
ing  ill, 
And    steeped   in   doom   familiar   field  and 

hill,  — 

New  England's  poet,  soul  reserved  and  deep, 
November  nature  with  a  name  of  May, 
Whom  high  o'er  Concord  plains  we  laid  to 

sleep, 
While  the  orchards  mocked  us  in  their  white 

array 

And  building  robins  wondered  at  our  tears, 
Snatched  in  his  prime,  the  shape  august 
That  should  have  stood  unbent  'neath  four 
score  years, 

The  noble  head,  the  eyes  of  furtive  trust. 
All  gone  to  speechless  dust. 
And  he  our  passing  guest, 
Shy  nature,  too,  and  stung  with  life's  unrest, 
Whom  we  too  briefly  had  but  could  not  hold, 
Who  brought  ripe  Oxford's  culture  to  our 
board, 

The  Past's  incalculable  hoard, 
Mellowed  by  scutcheoned  panes  in  cloisters 

old, 

Seclusions  ivy-hushed,  and  pavements  sweet 
With  immemorial  lisp  of  musing  feet ; 


12  AGASSIZ. 

Young  head  time-tonsured  smoother  than  a 

friar's, 

Boy  face,  but  grave  with  answerless  desires, 
Poet  in  all  that  poets  have  of  best, 
But  foiled  with  riddles  dark  and  cloudy  aims, 

Who  now  hath  found  sure  rest, 
Not  by  still  Isis  or  historic  Thames, 
Nor  by  the  Charles  he  tried  to  love  with  me, 
But,  not  misplaced,  by  Arno's  hallowed  brim, 
Nor  scorned  by  Santa  Croce's  neighboring 

fames, 

Haply  not  mindless,  wheresoever  he  be, 
Of  violets  that  to-day  I  scattered  over  him ; 

He,  too,  is  there, 

After  the  good  centurion  fitly  named, 
Whom  learning  dulled  not,  nor  convention 

tamed, 
Shaking  with  burly  mirth   his   hyacinthine 

hair, 

Our  hearty  Grecian  of  Homeric  ways, 
Still  found  the  surer  friend  where  least  he  hoped 

the  praise. 

6. 

Yea  truly,  as  the  sallowing  years 
Fall  from  us  faster,  like  frost-loosened  leaves 
Pushed   by  the   misty  touch   of  shortening 
days, 

And  that  unwakened  winter  nears, 
'T  is  the  void  chair  our  surest  guest  receives, 


AGASSIZ.  13 

'T  is  lips  long  cold  that  give  the  warmest  kiss, 
'T  is  the  lost  voice  comes  oftenest  to  our  ears  ; 
We  count  our  rosary  by  the  beads  we  miss  : 

To  me,  at  least,  it  seemeth  so, 
An  exile  in  the  land  once  found  divine, 

While  my  starved  fire  burns  low, 
And  homeless  winds  at  the  loose  casement 

whine 
Shrill  ditties  of  the  snow-roofed  Apennine. 

IV.     1. 

Now  forth  into  the  darkness  all  are  gone, 
But  memory,  still  unsated,  follows  on, 
Retracing  step  by  step  our  homeward  walk, 
With  many  a  laugh  among  our  serious  talk, 
Across  the  bridge  where,  on  the  dimpling 

tide, 
The  long  red  streamers  from  the  windows 

glide, 

Or  the  dim  western  moon 
Rocks  her  skiff's  image  on  the  broad  lagoon, 
And  Boston  shows  a  soft  Venetian  side 
In  that  Arcadian  light  when  roof  and  tree, 
Hard  prose  by  daylight,  dream  in  Italy ; 
Or  haply  in  the  sky's  cold  chambers  wide 
Shivered  the  winter  stars,  while  all  below, 
As  if  an  end  were  come  of  human  ill, 
The  world  was  wrapt  in  innocence  of  snow 
And  the  cast-iron  bay  was  blind  and  still ; 


14  AGASSIZ. 

These  were  our  poetry  ;  in  him  perhaps 
Science   had   barred   the    gate  that  lets  in 

dream, 
And  he  would  rather  count  the  perch  and 

bream 

Than  with  the  current's  idle  fancy  lapse  ; 
And  yet  he  had  the  poet's  open  eye 
That  takes  a  frank  delight  in  all  it  sees, 
Nor  was  earth  voiceless,  nor  the  mystic  sky, 
To   him    the    life-long  friend  of  fields  and 

trees : 

Then  came  the  prose  of  the  suburban  street, 
Its  silence  deepened  by  our  echoing  feet, 
And  converse  such  as  rambling  hazard  finds  ; 
Then   he  who  many  cities  knew  and  many 

minds, 
And    men    once   world-noised,    now    mere 

Ossian  forms 

Of  misty  memory,  bade  them  live  anew 
As  when  they  shared  earth's  manifold  de 
light, 

In  shape,  in  gait,  in  voice,  in  gesture  true, 
And,  with  an  accent  heightening  as  he  warms, 
Would  stop  forgetful  of  the  shortening  night, 
Drop  my  confining  arm,  and  pour  profuse 
Much  worldly  wisdom  kept  for  others'  use, 
Not  for  his  own,  for  he  was  rash  and  free, 
His  purse  or  knowledge  all  men's,  like  the 

sea. 
Still  can  I  hear  his  voice's  shrilling  might 


AGASS1Z.  15 

(With  pauses  broken,  while  the  fitful  spark 
He  blew  more  hotly  rounded  on  the  dark 
To  hint  his  features  with  a  Rembrandt  light) 
Call  Oken  back,  or  Humboldt,  or  Lamarck, 
Or  Cuvier's  taller  shade,  and  many  more 
Whom  he   had  seen,  or  knew  from  others' 

sight, 

And  make  them  men  to  me  as  ne'er  before  : 
Not  seldom,  as  the  undeadened  fibre  stirred 
Of  noble  friendships  knit  beyond  the  sea, 
German    or  French   thrust   by  the  lagging 

word, 

For  a  good  leash  of  mother-tongues  had  he. 

At  last,  arrived  at  where  our  paths  divide, 

"  Good   night !  "  and,  ere   the  distance  grew 

too  wide, 
"  Good  night !  "  again  ;  and  now  with  cheated 

ear 
I  half  hear  his  who  mine  shall  never  hear. 

2. 

Sometimes  it  seemed  as  if  New  England  air 
For  his  large  lungs  too  parsimonious  were, 
As  if  those  empty  rooms  of  dogma  drear 
Where  the  ghost  shivers  of  a  faith  austere 

Counting  the  horns  o'er  of  the  Beast, 
Still  scaring  those  whose  faith  in  it  is  least, 
As  if  those  snaps  o'  th*  moral  atmosphere 
That  sharpen  all  the  needles  of  the  East, 

Had  been  to  him  like  death, 


16  AGASS1Z. 

Accustomed  to  draw  Europe's  freer  breath 

In  a  more  stable  element  ; 
Nay,    even    our   landscape,   balf   the    year 

morose, 

Our  practical  horizon  grimly  pent, 
Our  air,  sincere  of  ceremonious  haze, 
Forcing  hard  outlines  mercilessly  close, 
Our  social  monotone  of  level  days, 

Might  make  our  best  seem  banishment ; 
But  it  was  nothing  so  ; 

Haply  his  instinct  might  divine, 
Beneath  our  drift  of  puritanic  snow, 

The  marvel  sensitive  and  fine 
Of  sanguinaria  over-rash  to  blow 
And  trust  its  shyness  to  an  air  malign ; 
Well  might  he  prize  truth's  warranty  and 

pledge 

In  the  grim  outcrop  of  our  granite  edge, 
Or  Hebrew  fervor  flashing  forth  at  need 
In  the  gaunt  sons  of  Calvin's  iron  breed, 
As  prompt  to  give  as  skilled  to  win  and  keep  ; 
But,  though  such  intuitions  might  not  cheer, 
Yet  life  was  good  to  him,  and,  there  or  here, 
With  that  sufficing  joy,  the  day  was  never  cheap  ; 
Thereto  his  mind  was  its  own  ample  sphere, 
And,  like  those  buildings  great  that  through 

the  year 

Carry  one  temperature,  his  nature  large 
Made  its  own  climate,  nor  could  any  marge 
Traced  by  convention  stay  him  from  his  bent : 


AGA88IZ.  17 

He  had  a  habitude  of  mountain  air  ; 
He  brought  wide  outlook  where  he  went, 

And  could  on  sunny  uplands  dwell 
Of  prospect  sweeter  than  the  pastures  fair 
High-hung  of  viny  Neufchatel ; 
Nor,  surely,  did  he  miss 
Some  pale,  imaginary  bliss 

Of  earlier  sights  whose  inner  landscape  still  was 
Swiss. 

V.     1. 

I  cannot  think  he  wished  so  soon  to  die 
With  all  his  senses  full  of  eager  heat, 
And  rosy  years  that  stood  expectant  by 
To  buckle  the  winged  sandals  on  their  feet, 
He  that  was  friends  with  earth,  and  all  her 

sweet 

Took  with  both  hands  unsparingly  : 
Truly  this  life  is  precious  to  the  root, 
And  good  the  feel  of  grass  beneath  the  foot ; 
To  lie  in  buttercups  and  clover-bloom, 

Tenants  in  common  with  the  bees, 
And  watch  the  white  clouds  drift   through 

gulfs  of  trees, 

Is  better  than  long  waiting  in  the  tomb  ; 
Only  once  more  to  feel  the  coming  spring 
As  the  birds  feel  it  when  it  bids  them  sing, 

Only  once  more  to  see  the  moon 
Through   leaf-fringed   abbey-arches   of    the 
elms 


18  AGASSIZ. 

Curve  her  mild  sickle  in  the  West 
Sweet  with  the  breath  of  hay-cocks,  were  a 

boon 

Worth  any  promise  of  soothsayer  realms 
Or  casual  hope  of  being  elsewhere  blest ; 

To  take  December  by  the  beard 
And  crush  the  creaking  snow  with  springy 

foot, 
While  overhead  the  North's  dumb  streamers 

shoot, 

Till  Winter  fawn  upon  the  cheek  endeared, 
Then  the  long  evening-ends 
Lingered  by  cosy  chimney-nooks, 
With  high  companionship  of  books 
Or  slippered  talk  of  friends 
And  sweet  habitual  looks, 
Is  better  than  to  stop  the  ears  with  dust : 
Too  soon  the  spectre  comes  to  say,  "  Thou  must !  " 

2. 

When  toil-crooked  hands  are  crost  upon  the 

breast, 

They  comfort  us  with  sense  of  rest ; 
They  must  be  glad  to  lie  forever  still ; 

Their  work  is  ended  with  their  day ; 
Another  fills  their  room;  't  is  the  World's  an 
cient  way, 

Whether  for  good  or  ill ; 
But  the  deft  spinners  of  the  brain, 
Who  love  each  added  day  and  find  it  gain, 
Them  overtakes  the  doom 


AGASSIZ.  19 

To  snap  the  half-grown  flower  upon  the  loom 
(Trophy  that  was  to  be  of  life-long  pain), 
The   thread   no   other  skill   can   ever  knit 

again. 
'T  was  so  with  him,  for  he  was  glad  to 

live, 

'T  was  doubly  so,  for  he  left  work  be 
gun  ; 

Could  not  this  eagerness  of  Fate  forgive 
Till  all  the  allotted  flax  were  spun  ? 
It  matters  not ;  for,  go  at  night  or  noon, 
A  friend,  whene'er  he  dies,  has  died  too 

soon, 

And,  once  we  hear  the  hopeless  He  is  dead, 
So  far  as  flesh  hath  knowledge,  all  is  said. 


VI.     1. 

I  seem  to  see  the  black  procession  go : 
That  crawling  prose   of    death  too  well   I 

know, 

The  vulgar  paraphrase  of  glorious  woe ; 
I  see  it  wind  through  that  unsightly  grove, 
Once  beautiful,  but  long  defaced 
With  granite  permanence  of  cockney  taste 
And  all  those  grim  disfigurements  we  love  : 
There,   then,  we   leave  him :     Him  ?  such 

costly  waste 

Nature  rebels  at :  and  it  is  not  true 
Of  those  most  precious  parts  of  him  we  knew  : 


20  AGASSIZ. 

Could  we  be  conscious  but  as  dreamers  be, 
'T  were  sweet  to  leave  tliis  shifting  life  of 

tents 

Sunk  in  the  changeless  calm  of  Deity  ; 
Nay,  to  be  mingled  with  the  elements, 
The  fellow-servant  of  creative  powers, 
Partaker  in  the  solemn  year's  events, 
To  share  the  work  of  busy-fingered  hours, 
To  be  night's  silent  almoner  of  dew, 
To  rise  again  in  plants  and  breathe  and  grow, 
To  stream  as  tides  the  ocean  caverns  through, 
Or  with  the  rapture  of  great  winds  to  blow 
About  earth's  shaken   coignes,  were  not  a 

fate 

To  leave  us  all-disconsolate  ; 
Even  endless  slumber  in  the  sweetening  sod 

Of  charitable  earth 
That  takes  out  all  our  mortal  stains, 
And   makes   us  cleanlier  neighbors  of  the 

clod, 

Methinks  were  better  worth 
Than   the   poor   fruit   of    most    men's   wakeful 

pains, 

The  heart's  insatiable  ache : 
But  such  was  not  his  faith, 
Nor  mine :  it  may  be  he  had  trod 
Outside  the  plain  old  path  of  God  thus  spake, 
But  God  to  him  was  very  God, 
And  not  a  visionary  wraith 
Skulking  in  murky  corners  of  the  mind, 


AGASSI Z.  21 

And  he  was  sure  to  be 
Somehow,  somewhere,  imperishable  as  He, 
Not  with  His  essence  mystically  combined, 
As  some  high  spirits  long,  but  whole  and  free, 

A  perfected  and  conscious  Agassiz. 
And  such  I  figure  him  :  the  wise  of  old 
Welcome  and  own  him  of  their  peaceful  fold, 
Not  truly  with  the  guild  enrolled 
Of  him  who  seeking  inward  guessed 
Diviner  riddles  than  the  rest, 
And  groping  in  the  darks  of  thought 
Touched  the  Great  Hand  and  knew  it  not ; 
Rather  he  shares  the  daily  light, 
From  reason's  charier  fountains  won, 
Of  his  great  chief,  the  slow-paced  Stagyrite, 
And  Cuvier  clasps  once  more  his  long-lost  son. 

2. 

The  shape  erect  is  prone  :  forever  stilled 

The  winning  tongue  ;    the  forehead's  high-piled 

heap, 

A  cairn  which  every  science  helped  to  build, 
Unvalued  will  its  golden  secrets  keep : 
He  knows  at  last  if  Life  or  Death  be  best : 
Wherever  he  be  flown,  whatever  vest 
The  being  hath  put  on  which  lately  here 
So  many-friended  was,  so  full  of  cheer 
To  make  men  feel  the  Seeker's  noble  zest, 
We  have  not  lost  him  all ;  he  is  not  gone 
To  the  dumb  herd  of  them  that  wholly  die  ; 


22  AGASSIZ. 

The  beauty  of  his  better  self  lives  on 

In  minds  he  touched  with  fire,  in  many  an  eye 

He  trained  to  Truth's  exact  severity  ; 

lie  was  a  Teacher :  why  be  grieved  for  him 

Whose  living  word  still  stimulates  the  air  ? 

In  endless  file  shall  loving  scholars  come 

The  glow  of  his  transmitted  touch  to  share, 

And  trace  his  features  with  an  eye  less  dim 

Than   ours   whose   sense   familiar   wont    makes 

numb. 
FLORENCE,  ITALY,  February,  1874. 


TO  HOLMES 

ON   HIS    SEVENTY-FIFTH    BIRTHDAY. 

DEAR  Wendell,  why  need  count  the  years 
Since  first  your  genius  made  me  thrill, 

If  what  moved  then  to  smiles  or  tears, 
Or  both  contending,  move  me  still  ? 

What  has  the  Calendar  to  do 

With  poets  ?     What  Time's  fruitless  tooth 
With  gay  immortals  such  as  you 

Whose  years  but  emphasize  your  youth  ? 

One  air  gave  both  their  lease  of  breath  ; 

The  same  paths  lured  our  boyish  feet ; 
One  earth  will  hold  us  safe  in  death, 

With  dust  of  saints  and  scholars  sweet. 

Our  legends  from  one  source  were  drawn, 
I  scarce  distinguish  yours  from  mine, 

And  don't  we  make  the  Gentiles  yawn 
With  "  You  remembers  ?  "  o'er  our  wine  ! 

If  I,  with  too  senescent  air, 

Invade  your  elder  memory's  pale, 

You  snub  me  with  a  pitying  "  Where 
Were  you  in  the  September  Gale  ?  " 
(23) 


24  TO  HOLMES   ON  II IS  BIRTHDAY. 

Both  stared  entranced  at  Lafayette, 
Saw  Jackson  dubbed  with  LL.  D. 

What  Cambridge  saw  not  strikes  us  yet 
As  scarcely  worth  one's  while  to  see. 

Ten  years  my  senior,  when  my  name 
In  Harvard's  entrance-book  was  writ, 

Her  halls  still  echoed  with  the  fame 
Of  you,  her  poet  and  her  wit. 

'T  is  fifty  years  from  then  to  now  : 
But  your  Last  Leaf  renews  its  green, 

Though,  for  the  laurels  on  your  brow 
(So  thick  they  crowd),  't  is  hardly  seen. 

The  oriole's  fledglings  fifty  times 
Have  flown  from  our  familiar  elms  ; 

As  many  poets  with  their  rhymes 
Oblivion's  darkling  dust  o'erwhehns. 

The  birds  are  hushed,  the  poets  gone 
Where  no  harsh  critic's  lash  can  reach, 

And  still  your  winged  brood  sing  on 
To  all  who  love  our  English  speech. 

Nay,  let  the  foolish  records  be 

That  make  believe  you  're  seventy-five : 
You  're  the  old  Wendell  still  to  me,  — 

And  that 's  the  youngest  man  alive. 


TO  HOLMES  ON  HIS  BIRTHDAY.          25 

The  gray-blue  eyes,  I  see  them  still, 
The  gallant  front  with  brown  o'erhung, 

The  shape  alert,  the  wit  at  will, 

The  phrase  that  stuck,  but  never  stung. 

You  keep  your  youth  as  yon  Scotch  firs, 
Whose  gaunt  line  my  horizon  hems, 

Though  twilight  all  the  lowland  blurs, 
Hold  sunset  in  their  ruddy  stems. 

You  with  the  elders  ?     Yes,  't  is  true, 

But  in  no  sadly  literal  sense, 
With  elders  and  coevals  too, 

Whose  verb  admits  no  preterite  tense. 

Master  alike  in  speech  and  song 
Of  fame's  great  antiseptic  —  Style, 

You  with  the  classic  few  belong 

Who  tempered  wisdom  with  a  smile. 

Outlive  us  all !     Who  else  like  you 

Could  sift  the  seedcorn  from  our  chaff, 

And  make  us  with  the  pen  we  knew 
Deathless  at  least  in  epitaph  ? 

WOLLASTON,  August  29,  1884. 


IN   A   COPY   OF   OMAR   KHAYYAM. 

THESE  pearls  of  thought  in  Persian  gulfs  were 

bred, 

Each  softly  lucent  as  a  rounded  moon  ; 
The  diver  Omar  plucked  them  from  their  bed, 
Fitzgerald  strung  them  on  an  English  thread. 

Fit  rosary  for  a  queen,  in  shape  and  hue, 
When  Contemplation  tells  her  pensive  beads 
Of  mortal  thoughts,  forever  old  and  new. 
Fit  for  a  queen  ?     Why,  surely  then  for  you  ! 

The    moral?     Where  Doubt's   eddies  toss   and 

twirl 

Faith's  slender  shallop  till  her  footing  reel, 
Plunge  :  if  you  find  not  peace  beneath  the  whirl, 
Groping,  you  may  like  Omar  grasp  a  pearl. 
(26) 


ON    RECEIVING    A    COPY   OF    MR. 

AUSTIN  DOBSON'S  "OLD  WORLD 

IDYLLS." 

I. 

AT  length  arrived,  your  book  I  take 
To  read  in  for  the  author's  sake  ; 
Too  gray  for  new  sensations  grown, 
Can  charm  to  Art  or  Nature  known 
This  torpor  from  my  senses  shake  ? 

Hush !  my  parched  ears  what  runnels  slake  ? 
Is  a  thrush  gurgling  from  the  brake  ? 
Has  Spring,  on  all  the  breezes  blown, 
At  length  arrived  ? 

Long  may  you  live  such  songs  to  make, 
And  I  to  listen  while  you  wake, 
With  skill  of  late  disused,  each  tone 
Of  the  Lesboum  barbiton, 
At  mastery,  through  long  finger-ache, 
At  length  arrived. 

II. 

As  I  read  on,  what  changes  steal 
O'er  me  and  through,  from  head  to  heel  ? 
(27) 


28        DOBSON'S  "OLD    WORLD  IDYLLS." 

A  rapier  thrusts  coat-skirt  aside, 

My  rough  Tweeds  bloom  to  silken  pride,  — 

Who  was  it  laughed  ?     Your  hand,  Dick  Steele ! 

Down  vistas  long  of  dipt  cfiarmille 
Watteau  as  Pierrot  leads  the  reel ; 
Tabor  and  pipe  the  dancers  guide 
As  I  read  on. 

While  in  and  out  the  verses  wheel 
The  wind-caught  robes  trim  feet  reveal, 
Lithe  ankles  that  to  music  glide, 
But  chastely  and  by  chance  descried ; 
Art  ?     Nature  ?     Which  do  I  most  feel 
As  I  read  on  ? 


TO   C.  F.  BRADFORD 

ON   THE   GIFT    OF   A   MEERSCHAUM   PIPE. 

THE  pipe  came  safe,  and  welcome  too, 

As  anything  must  be  from  you ; 

A  meerschaum  pure,  't  would  float  as  light 

As  she  the  girls  call  Amphitrite. 

Mixture  divine  of  foam  and  clay, 

From  both  it  stole  the  best  away  : 

Its  foam  is  such  as  crowns  the  glow 

Of  beakers  brimmed  by  Veuve  Clicquot ; 

Its  clay  is  but  congested  lymph 

Jove  chose  to  make  some  choicer  nymph ; 

And  here  combined,  —  why,  this  must  be 

The  birth  of  some  enchanted  sea, 

Shaped  to  immortal  form,  the  type 

And  very  Venus  of  a  pipe. 

When  high  I  heap  it  with  the  weed 
From  Lethe  wharf,  whose  potent  seed 
Nicotia,  big  from  Bacchus,  bore 
And  cast  upon  Virginia's  shore, 
I  '11  think,  —  So  fill  the  fairer  bowl 
And  wise  alembic  of  thy  soul, 
With  herbs  far-sought  that  shall  distil, 
(29) 


30  TO    C.  F.   BRADFORD. 

Not  fumes  to  slacken  thought  and  will, 
But  bracing  essences  that  nerve 
To  wait,  to  dare,  to  strive,  to  serve. 

When  curls  the  smoke  in  eddies  soft, 

And  hangs  a  shifting  dream  aloft, 

That  gives  and  takes,  though  chance-designed, 

The  impress  of  the  dreamer's  mind, 

I  '11  think,  —  So  let  the  vapors  bred 

By  Passion,  in  the  heart  or  head, 

Pass  off  and  upward  into  space, 

Waving  farewells  of  tenderest  grace, 

Remembered  in  some  happier  time, 

To  blend  their  beauty  with  my  rhyme. 

While  slowly  o'er  its  candid  bowl 
The  color  deepens  (as  the  soul 
That  burns  in  mortals  leaves  its  trace 
Of  bale  or  beauty  on  the  face), 
I  '11  think,  —  So  let  the  essence  rare 
Of  years  consuming  make  me  fair  ; 
So,  'gainst  the  ills  of  life  profuse, 
Steep  me  in  some  narcotic  juice ; 
And  if  my  soul  must  part  with  all 
That  whiteness  which  we  greenness  call, 
Smooth  back,  O  Fortune,  half  thy  frown, 
And  make  me  beautifully  brown  ! 

Dream-forger,  I  refill  thy  cup 
With  reverie's  wasteful  pittance  up, 


TO  C.  F.  BRADFORD.  31 

And  while  the  fire  burns  slow  away, 
Hiding  itself  in  ashes  gray, 
I  '11  think,  —  As  inward  Youth  retreats, 
Compelled  to  spare  his  wasting  heats, 
When  Life's  Ash-Wednesday  comes  about, 
And  my  head  's  gray  with  fires  burnt  out, 
While  stays  one  spark  to  light  the  eye, 
With  the  last  flash  of  memory, 
'T  will  leap  to  welcome  C.  F.  B., 
Who  sent  my  favorite  pipe  to  me. 


BANKSIDE. 

(HOME  OF  EDMUND  QUINCY.) 

DKDHAM,  MAT  21,  1877. 

I. 

I  CHRISTEXED  you  in  happier  days,  before 
These  gray  forebodings  on  my  brow  were  seen ; 
You  are  still  lovely  in  your  new-leaved  green ; 
The  brimming  river  soothes  his  grassy  shore ; 
The  bridge  is  there ;  the  rock  with  lichens  hoar ; 
And  the  same  shadows  on  the  water  lean, 
Outlasting  us.     How  many  graves  between 
That  day  and  this  !     How  many  shadows  more 
Darken  my  heart,  their  substance  from  these  eyea 
Hidden  forever !     So  our  world  is  made 
Of  life  and  death  commingled ;  and  the  sighs 
Outweigh  the  smiles,  in  equal  balance  laid  : 
What  compensation  ?     None,  save  that  the  All- 
wise 

So  schools  us  to  love  things  that  cannot  fade. 
(32) 


BANKSIDE.  33 


II. 

Thank  God,  he  saw  you  last  in  pomp  of  May, 

Ere  any  leaf  had  felt  the  year's  regret ; 

Your  latest  image  in  his  memory  set 

Was  fair  as  when  your  landscape's  peaceful  sway 

Charmed  dearer  eyes  with  his  to  make  delay 

On  Hope's  long  prospect,  —  as  if  They  forget 

The  happy,  They,  the  unspeakable  Three,  whose 

debt, 
Like   the   hawk's    shadow,   blots   our    brightest 

day : 

Better  it  is  that  ye  should  look  so  fair, 
Slopes  that  he  loved,  and  ever-murmuring  pines 
That  make  a  music  out  of  silent  air, 
And   bloom-heaped   orchard-trees  in  prosperous 

lines  ; 

In  you  the  heart  some  sweeter  hints  divines, 
And  wiser,  than  in  winter's  dull  despair. 


34  BANKSWE. 


III. 

Old  Friend,  farewell !     Your  kindly  door  again 
I  enter,  but  the  master's  hand  in  mine 
No  more  clasps  welcome,  and  the  temperate  wine, 
That   cheered    our  long  nights,  other  lips  must 

stain: 

All  is  unchanged,  but  I  expect  in  vain 
The  face  alert,  the  manners  free  and  fine, 
The  seventy  years  borne  lightly  as  the  pine 
Wears  its  first  down  of  snow  in  green  disdain : 
Much  did  he,  and  much  well  ;  yet  most  of  all 
I  prized  his  skill  in  leisure  and  the  ease 
Of  a  life  flowing  full  without  a  plan  ; 
For  most  are  idly  busy  ;  him  I  call 
Thrice  fortunate  who  knew  himself  to  please, 
Learned  in  those  arts  that  make  a  gentleman. 


BANKSIDE.  35 


IV. 

Nor  deem  he  lived  unto  himself  alone ; 
His  was  the  public  spirit  of  his  sire, 
And  in  those  eyes,  soft  with  domestic  fire, 
A  quenchless  light  of  fiercer  temper  shone 
What  time  about  the  world  our  shame  was  blown 
On  every  wind  ;  his  soul  would  not  conspire 
With  selfish  men  to  soothe  the  mob's  desire, 
Veiling  with  garlands  Moloch's  bloody  stone ; 
The  high-bred  instincts  of  a  better  day 
Ruled  in  his  blood,  when  to  be  citizen 
Rang  Roman  yet,  and  a  Free  People's  sway 
Was  not  the  exchequer  of  impoverished  men, 
Nor  statesmanship  with  loaded  votes  to  play, 
Nor  public  office  a  tramps'  boosing-ken. 


JOSEPH  WINLOCK. 

DIED  JUNE  11,  1875. 

SHY  soul  and  stalwart,  man  of  patient  will 
Through  years  one  hair's-breadth  on  our  Dark  to 

gain, 

Who,  from  the  stars  he  studied  not  in  vain, 
Had  learned  their  secret  to  be  strong  and  still, 
Careless  of  fames  that  earth's  tin  trumpets  fill ; 
Born  under  Leo,  broad  of  build  and  brain, 
While  others  slept,  he  watched  in  that  hushed 

fane 

Of  Science,  only  witness  of  his  skill : 
Sudden  as  falls  a  shooting-star  he  fell, 
But  inextinguishable  his  luminous  trace 
In  mind  and  heart  of  all  that  knew  him  well. 
Happy  man's  doom!     To  him  the  Fates  were 

known 

Of  orbs  dim  hovering  on  the  skirts  of  space, 
Unprescient,  through  God's  mercy,  of  his  own! 
(36) 


SONNET. 

TO   FANNY  ALEXANDER. 

UNCONSCIOUS  as  the  sunshine,  simply  sweet 
And  generous  as  that,  thou  dost  not  close 
Thyself  in  art.  as  life  were  but  a  rose 
To  rumple  bee-like  with  luxurious  feet ; 
Thy  higher  mind  therein  finds  sure  retreat, 
But  not  from  care  of  common  hopes  and  woes ; 
Thee   the  dark  chamber,  thee   the  unfriended, 

knows, 

Although  no  babbling  crowds  thy  praise  repeat : 
Consummate  artist,  who  life's  landscape  bleak 
Hast  brimmed  with  sun  to  many  a  clouded  eye, 
Touched  to  a  brighter  hue  the  beggar's  cheek, 
Hung  over  orphaned  lives  a  gracious  sky, 
And  traced  for  eyes,  that  else  would  vainly  seek, 
Fair  pictures  of  an  angel  drawing  nigh ! 
FLORENCE,  1873. 

(37) 


JEFFRIES  WYMAN. 

DIED  SEPTEMBEK  4,  1874 

THE  wisest  man  could  ask  no  more  of  Fate 
Than  to  be  simple,  modest,  manly,  true, 
Safe  from  the  Many,  honored  by  the  Few ; 
To  count  as  naught  in  World,  or  Church,  or  State, 
But  inwardly  in  secret  to  be  great ; 
To  feel  mysterious  Nature  ever  new  ; 
To  touch,  if  not  to  grasp,  her  endless  clew, 
And  learn  by  each  discovery  how  to  wait. 
He  widened  knowledge  and  escaped  the  praise ; 
He  wisely  taught,  because  more  wise  to  learn  ; 
He  toiled  for  Science,  not  to  draw  men's  gaze, 
But  for  her  lore  of  self-denial  stern. 
That  such  a  man  could  spring  from  our  decays 
Fans  the  soul's  nobler  faith  until  it  burn. 
(38) 


TO  A  FRIEND 

WHO  GAVE   ME  A  GROUP  OF  WEEDS  AND  GRASSES, 
AFTER   A   DRAWING   OF   DURER. 

TRUE  as  the  sun's  own  work,  but  more  refined, 
It  tells  of  love  behind  the  artist's  eye, 
Of  sweet  companionships  with  earth  and  sky, 
And  summers  stored,  the  sunshine  of  the  mind. 
What  peace !     Sure,  ere  you  breathe,  the  fickle 

wind 
Will  break  its  truce  and  bend  that  grass-plume 

high, 

Scarcely  yet  quiet  from  the  gilded  fly 
That  flits  a  more  luxurious  perch  to  find. 
Thanks  for  a  pleasure  that  can  never  pall, 
A  serene  moment,  deftly  caught  and  kept 
To  make  immortal  summer  on  my  wall. 
Had  he  who  drew  such  gladness  ever  wept  ? 
Ask  rather  could  he  else  have  seen  at  all, 
Or  grown  in  Nature's  mysteries  an  adept  ? 
(39) 


WITH   AN   ARMCHAIR. 

ABOUT  the  oak  that  framed  this  chair,  of  old 
The  seasons  danced  their  round  ;  delighted  wings 
Brought   music   to   its   boughs ;    shy   woodland 

things 
Shared  its  broad  roof,  'neath  whose  green  glooms 

grown  bold, 

Lovers,  more  shy  than  they,  their  secret  told  ; 
The  resurrection  of  a  thousand  springs 
Swelled  in  its  veins,  and  dim  imaginings 
Teased  them,  perchance,  of  life  more  manifold. 
Such  shall  it  know  when  its  proud  arms  enclose 
My  Lady  Goshawk,  musing  here  at  rest, 
Careless  of  him  who  into  exile  goes, 
Yet,  while  his  gift  by  those  fair  limbs  is  prest, 
Through  some  fine  sympathy  of  nature  knows 
That,  seas  between  us,  she  is  still  his  guest. 
(40) 


E.  G.  DE  R. 

WHY  should  I  seek  her  spell  to  decompose 
Or  to  its  source  each  rill  of  influence  trace 
That  feeds  the  hrimming  river  of  her  grace  ? 
The  petals  numbered  but  degrade  to  prose 
Summer's  triumphant  poem  of  the  rose : 
Enough  for  me  to  watch  the  wavering  chase, 
Like  wind  o'er  grass,  of  moods  across  her  face, 
Fairest  in  motion,  fairer  in  repose. 
Steeped  in  her  sunshine,  let  me,  while  I  may, 
Partake  the  bounty :  ample  't  is  for  me 
That  her  mirth  cheats  my  temples  of  their  gray, 
Her  charm  makes  years  long  spent  seem  yet  to  be. 
Wit,  goodness,  grace,  swift  flash  from  grave  to 

gay,— 

All  these  are  good,  but  better  far  is  she. 
(41) 


BON   VOYAGE! 

SHIP,  blest  to  bear  such  freight  across  the  blue, 
May  storm! ess  stars  control  thy  horoscope  ; 
In  keel  and  hull,  in  every  spar  and  rope, 
Be  night  and  day  to  thy  dear  office  true ! 
Ocean,  men's  path  and  their  divider  too, 
No  fairer  shrine  of  memory  and  hope 
To  the  underworld  adown  thy  westering  slope 
E'er  vanished,  or  whom  such  regrets  pursue  : 
Smooth  all  thy  surges  as  when  Jove  to  Crete 
Swam  with  less  costly  burthen,  and  prepare 
A  pathway  meet  for  her  home-coming  soon 
With  golden  undulations  such  as  greet 
The  printless  summer-sandals  of  the  moon 
And  tempt  the  Nautilus  his  cruise  to  dare ! 
(42) 


TO  WHITTIER 

ON   HIS    SEVENTY-FIFTH   BIRTHDAY. 

NEW  ENGLAND'S  poet,  rich  in  love  as  years, 
Her  hills  and  valleys  praise  thee,  her  swift  brooks 
Dance  in  thy  verse ;  to  her  grave  sylvan  nooks 
Thy  steps  allure  us,  which  the  wood-thrush  hears 
As  maids  their  lovers',  and  no  treason  fears ; 
Through  thee  her  Merrimacs  and  Agiochooks 
And  many  a  name  uncouth  win  gracious  looks, 
Sweetly  familiar  to  both  Englands'  ears  : 
Peaceful  by  birthright  as  a  virgin  lake, 
The  lily's  anchorage,  which  no  eyes  behold 
Save  those  of  stars,  yet  for  thy  brother's  sake 
That  lay  in  bonds,  thou  blewst  a  blast  as  bold 
As  that  wherewith  the  heart  of  Roland  brake, 
Far  heard  across  the  New  World  and  the  Old. 
(43) 


ON  AN  AUTUMN  SKETCH  OF  H.  G.  WILD. 

THANKS  to  the  artist,  ever  on  my  wall 
The  sunset  stays :  that  hill  in  glory  rolled, 
Those  trees  and  clouds  in  crimson  and  in  gold, 
Burn  on,  nor  cool  when  evening's  shadows  fall. 
Not  round  these  splendors  Midnight  wraps  her 

pall; 

These  leaves  the  flush  of  Autumn's  vintage  hold 
In  Winter's  spite,  nor  can  the  Northwind  bold 
Deface  my  chapel's  western  window  small : 
On  one,  ah  me  !  October  struck  his  frost, 
But  not  repaid  him  with  those  Tyrian  hues ; 
His  naked  boughs  but  tell  him  what  is  lost, 
And  parting  comforts  of  the  sun  refuse : 
His  heaven  is  bare,  —  ah,  were  its  hollow  crost 
Even  with  a  cloud  whose  light  were  yet  to  lose ! 

April,  1854. 

(44) 


TO  MISS  D.  T. 

ON     HER    GIVING    ME   A    DRAWING    OF     LITTLE 
STREET   ARABS. 

As,  cleansed  of  Tiber's  and  Oblivion's  slime, 
Glow  Farnesina's  vaults  with  shapes  again 
That  dreamed  some  exiled  artist  from  his  pain 
Back  to  his  Athens  and  the  Muse's  clime, 
So   these   world-orphaned   waifs   of    Want  and 

Crime, 

Purged  by  Art's  absolution  from  the  stain 
Of  the  polluting  city-flood,  regain 
Ideal  grace  secure  from  taint  of  time. 
An  Attic  frieze  you  give,  a  pictured  song  ; 
For  as  with  words  the  poet  paints,  for  you 
The  happy  pencil  at  its  labor  sings, 
Stealing  his  privilege,  nor  does  him  wrong, 
Beneath  the  false  discovering  the  true, 
And  Beauty's  best  in  unregarded  things. 


WITH    A    COPY    OF    AUCASSIN    AND 
NICOLETE. 

LEAVES   fit   to   have  been  poor  Juliet's  cradle- 
rhyme, 

With  gladness  of  a  heart  long  quenched  in  mould 
They  vibrate  still,  a  nest  not  yet  grown  cold 
From  its  fledged  burthen.     The  numb  hand  of 

Time 

Vainly  his  glass  turns  ;  here  is  endless  prime  ; 
Here  lips  their  roses  keep  and  locks  their  gold ; 
Here  Love  in  pristine  innocency  bold 
Speaks    what   our   grosser   conscience   makes  a 

crime. 

Because  it  tells  the  dream  that  all  have  known 
Once  in  their  lives,  and  to  life's  end  the  few ; 
Because  its  seeds  o'er  Memory's  desert  blown 
Spring  up  in  heartsease  such  as  Eden  knew ; 
Because  it  hath  a  beauty  all  its  own, 
Dear  Friend,  I  plucked  this  herb  of  grace  for  you. 
(46) 


ON  PLANTING  A  TREE  AT  INVEKAKA, 

WHO  does  his  duty  is  a  question 
Too  complex  to  be  solved  by  me, 
But  he,  I  venture  the  suggestion, 
Does  part  of  his  that  plants  a  tree. 

For  after  he  is  dead  and  buried, 
And  epitaphed,  and  well  forgot, 
Nay,  even  his  shade  by  Charon  ferried 
To  —  let  us  not  inquire  to  what, 

His  deed,  its  author  long  outliving, 
By  Nature's  mother-care  increased, 
Shall  stand,  his  verdant  almoner,  giving 
A  kindly  dole  to  man  and  beast. 

The  wayfarer,  at  noon  reposing, 
Shall  bless  its  shadow  on  the  grass, 
Or  sheep  beneath  it  huddle,  dozing 
Until  the  thundergust  o'erpass. 

The  owl,  belated  in  his  plundering, 
Shall  here  await  the  friendly  night, 
Blinking  whene'er  he  wakes,  and  wondering 
What  fool  it  was  invented  light. 

(47) 


48    ON  PLANTING  A  TREE  AT  INVERARA. 

Hither  the  busy  birds  shall  flutter, 
With  the  light  timber  for  their  nests, 
And,  pausing  from  their  labor,  utter 
The  morning  sunshine  in  their  breasts. 

What  though  liis  memory  shall  have  vanished, 
Since  the  good  deed  he  did  survives  ? 
It  is  not  wholly  to  be  banished 
Thus  to  be  part  of  many  lives. 

Grow,  then,  my  foster-child,  and  strengthen, 
Bough  over  bough,  a  murmurous  pile, 
And,  as  your  stately  stem  shall  lengthen, 
So  may  the  statelier  of  Argyll ! 
1880. 


AN  EPISTLE  TO  GEORGE  WILLIAM 
CURTIS. 

"  De  prodome, 

Des  qu'il  s'atorne  a  grant  bonte 
Ja  n'iert  tot  dit  ne  tot  conte, 
Que  leingue  ne  puet  pas  retraire 
Tant  d'enor  com  prodom  set  faire." 

CBESTIEN  DE  TKOIES, 
Li  Romans  dou  Chevalier  au  Lyon,  784-788* 

1874. 

CURTIS,  whose  Wit,  with  Fancy  arm  in  arm, 
Masks  half  its  muscle  in  its  skill  to  charm, 
And  who  so  gently  can  the  Wrong  expose 
As  sometimes  to  make  converts,  never  foes, 
Or  only  such  as  good  men  must  expect, 
Knaves  sore  with  conscience  of  their  own  defect, 
I  come  with  mild  remonstrance.     Ere  I  start, 
A  kindlier  errand  interrupts  my  heart, 
And  I  must  utter,  though  it  vex  your  ears, 
The  love,  the  honor,  felt  so  many  years. 

Curtis,  skilled  equally  with  voice  and  pen 
To  stir  the  hearts  or  mould  the  minds  of  men,  — 
That  voice  whose  music,  for  I  've  heard  you  sing 
Sweet  as  Casella,  can  with  passion  ring, 
That  pen  whose  rapid  ease  ne'er  trips  with  haste, 
(49) 


50  TO   GEORGE    WILLIAM  CURTIS. 

Nor  scrapes  nor  sputters,  pointed  with  good  taste, 
First  Steele's,  then  Goldsmith's,  next  it  came  to 

you, 

Whom  Thackeray  rated  best  of  all  our  crew,  — 
Had  letters  kept  you,  every  wreath  were  yours  ; 
Had  the  World  tempted,  all  its  chariest  doors 
Had  swung  on  flattered  liinges  to  admit 
Such  high-bred  manners,  such  good-natured  wit ; 
At  courts,  in  senates,  who  so  fit  to  serve  ? 
And  both  invited,  but  you  would  not  swerve, 
All  meaner  prizes  waiving  that  you  might 
In  civic  duty  spend  your  heat  and  light, 
Unpaid,  untrammelled,  with  a  sweet  disdain 
Refusing  posts  men  grovel  to  attain. 
Good  Man  all  own  you  ;  what  is  left  me,  then, 
To  heighten  praise  with  but  Good  Citizen  ? 

But  why  this  praise  to  make  you  blush  and  stare, 
And  give  a  backache  to  your  Easy-Chair  ? 
Old  Crestien  rightly  says  no  language  can 
Express  the  worth  of  a  true  Gentleman, 
And  I  agree  ;  but  other  thoughts  deride 
My  first  intent,  and  lure  my  pen  aside. 
Thinking  of  you,  I  see  my  firelight  glow 
On  other  faces,  loved  from  long  ago, 
Dear  to  us  both,  and  all  these  loves  combine 
With  this  I  send  and  crowd  in  every  line  ; 
Fortune  with  me  was  in  such  generous  mood 
That  all  my  friends  were   yours,  and   all   were 
good ; 


TO  GEORGE    WILLIAM  CURTIS.  51 

Three  generations  come  when  one  I  call, 
And  the  fair  grandame,  youngest  of  them  all, 
In  her  own  Florida  who  found  and  sips 
The  fount  that  fled  from  Ponce's  longing  lips. 
How  bright  they  rise    and  wreathe   my  hearth 
stone  round, 

Divine  my  thoughts,  reply  without  a  sound, 
And  with  them  many  a  shape  that  memory  sees, 
As   dear   as   they,   but    crowned   with   aureoles 

these  ! 

What  wonder  if,  with  protest  in  my  thought, 
Arrived,  I  find  't  was  only  love  I  brought  ? 
I  came  with  protest ;  Memory  barred  the  road 
Till  I  repaid  you  half  the  debt  I  owed. 

No,  't  was  not  to  bring  laurels  that  I  came, 
Nor*would  you  wish  it,  daily  seeing  fame, 
(Or  our  cheap  substitute,  unknown  of  yore,) 
Dumped  like  a  load  of  coal  at  every  door, 
Mime  and  hetaera  getting  equal  weight 
With  him  whose  toils  heroic  saved  the  State. 
But  praise  can  harm  not  who  so  calmly  met 
Slander's  worst  word,  nor  treasured  up  the  debt, 
Knowing,  what  all  experience  serves  to  show, 
No  mud  can  soil  us  but  the  mud  we  throw. 
You  have  heard  harsher  voices  and  more  loud, 
As  all  must,  not  sworn  liegemen  of  the  crowd, 
And  far  aloof  your  silent  mind  could  keep 
As  when,  in  heavens  with  winter-midnight  deep, 
The  perfect  moon  hangs  thoughtful,  nor  can  know 
What  hounds  her  lucent  calm  drives  mad  below. 


52  TO   GEORGE  WILLIAM  CURTIS. 

But  to  my  business,  while  you  rub  your  eyes 
And  wonder  how  you  ever  thought  me  wise. 
Dear  friend  and  old,  they  say  you  shake  your 

head 

And  wish  some  bitter  words  of  mine  unsaid  : 
I  wish  they  might  be,  —  there  we  are  agreed  ; 
I  hate  to  speak,  still  more  what  makes  the  need  ; 
But  I  must  utter  what  the  voice  within 
Dictates,  for  acquiescence  dumb  were  sin  ; 
I  blurt  ungrateful  truths,  if  so  they  be, 
That  none  may  need  to  say  them  after  me. 
'T  were  my  felicity  could  I  attain 
The  temperate  zeal  that  balances  your  brain ; 
But  nature  still  o'erleaps  reflection's  plan, 
And  one  must  do  his  service  as  he  can. 
Think  you  it  were  not  pleasanter  to  speak 
Smooth  words  that  leave  unflushed  the  brow  and 

cheek  ? 

To  sit,  well-dined,  with  cynic  smile,  unseen 
In  private  box,  spectator  of  the  scene 
Where  men  the  comedy  of  life  rehearse, 
Idly  to  judge  which  better  and  which  worse 
Each  hireling  actor  spoiled  his  worthless  part  ? 
Were  it  not  sweeter  with  a  careless  heart, 
In  happy  commune  with  the  untainted  brooks, 
To  dream  all  day,  or,  walled  with  silent  books, 
To  hear  nor  heed  the  World's  unmeaning  noise, 
Safe  in  my  fortress  stored  with  lifelong  joys  ? 

I  love  too  well  the  pleasures  of  retreat 


TO  GEORGE  WILLIAM  CURTIS.  53 

Safe  from  the  crowd   and    cloistered   from   the 

street ; 

The  fire  that  whispers  its  domestic  joy, 
Flickering  on  walls  that  knew  me  still  a  boy, 
And  knew  my  saintly  father ;  the  full  days, 
Not  careworn  from  the  world's  soul-squandering 

ways, 

Calm  days  that  loiter  with  snow-silent  tread, 
Nor  break  my  commune  with  the  undying  dead ; 
Truants  of  Time,  to-morrow  like  to-day, 
That  come  unbid,  and  claimless  glide  away 
By  shelves  that  sun  them  in  the  indulgent  Past, 
Where  Spanish  castles,  even,  were  built  to  last, 
Where  saint  and  sage  their  silent  vigil  keep, 
And  wrong  hath  ceased  or  sung  itself  to  sleep. 
Dear  were  my  walks,  too,  gathering  fragrant  store 
Of  Mother  Nature's  simple-minded  lore  : 
I  learned  all  weather-signs  of  day  or  night ; 
No  bird  but  I  could  name  him  by  his  flight, 
No  distant  tree  but  by  his  shape  was  known, 
Or,  near  at  hand,  by  leaf  or  bark  alone. 
This  learning  won  by  loving  looks  I  hived 
As  sweeter  lore  than  all  from  books  derived. 
I  know  the  charm  of  hillside,  field,  and  wood, 
Of  lake  and  stream,  and  the  sky's  downy  brood, 
Of  roads  sequestered  rimmed  with  sallow  sod, 
But  friends  with  hardback,  aster,  goldenrod, 
Or  succory  keeping  summer  long  its  trust 
Of  heaven-blue  fleckless  from  the  eddying  dust : 
These  were  my  earliest  friends,  and  latest  too, 


54  TO   GEORGE  WILLIAM   CURTIS. 

Still  unestranged,  whatever  fate  may  do. 

For  years  I  had  these  treasures,  knew  their  worth, 

Estate  most  real  man  can  have  on  earth. 

I  sank  too  deep  in  this  soft-stuffed  repose 

That  hears  but  rumors   of  earth's  wrongs  and 

woes ; 

Too  well  these  Capuas  could  my  muscles  waste, 
Not  void  of  toils,  but  toils  of  choice  and  taste  ; 
These  still  had  kept  me  could  I  but  have  quelled 
The  Puritan  drop  that  in  my  veins  rebelled. 
But  there  were  times  when  silent  were  my  books 
As  jailers  are,  and  gave  me  sullen  looks, 
When  verses  palled,  and  even  the  woodland  path, 
By  innocent  contrast,  fed  my  heart  with  wrath, 
And  I  must  twist  my  little  gift  of  words 
Into  a  scourge  of  rough  and  knotted  cords 
Unmusical,  that  whistle  as  they  swing 
To  leave  on  shameless  backs  their  purple  sting. 

How  slow  Time  comes !     Gone,  who  so  swift  as 

he? 

Add  but  a  year,  't  is  half  a  century 
Since  the  slave's  stifled  moaning  broke  my  sleep, 
Heard  'gainst  my  will  in  that  seclusion  deep, 
Haply  heard  louder  for  the  silence  there, 
And  so  my  fancied  safeguard  made  my  snare. 
After  that  moan  had  sharpened  to  a  cry, 
And  the  cloud,  hand-broad  then,  heaped  all  our 

sky 
With  its   stored  vengeance,  and   such   thunders 

stirred 


TO  GEORGE  WILLIAM   CURTIS.  55 

As  heaven's  and  earth's  remotest  chambers  heard, 

I  looked  to  see  an  ampler  atmosphere 

By  that  electric  passion-gust  blown  clear. 

I  looked  for  this  ;  consider  what  I  see  — 

But  I  forbear,  't  would  please  nor  you  nor  me 

To  check  the  items  in  the  bitter  list 

Of  all  I  counted  on  and  all  I  mist. 

Only  three  instances  I  choose  from  all, 

And  each  enough  to  stir  a  pigeon's  gall : 

Office  a  fund  for  ballot-brokers  made 

To  pay  the  drudges  of  their  gainful  trade ; 

Our  cities  taught  what  conquered  cities  feel 

By  aediles  chosen  that  they  might  safely  steal ; 

And  gold,  however  got,  a  title  fair 

To  such  respect  as  only  gold  can  bear. 

I  seem  to  see  this  ;  how  shall  I  gainsay 

What  all  our  journals  tell  me  every  day  ? 

Poured   our   young   martyrs   their  high-hearted 

blood 

That  we  might  trample  to  congenial  mud 
The  soil  with  such  a  legacy  sublimed  ? 
Methinks  an  angry  scorn  is  here  well-timed  : 
Where  find  retreat  ?    How  keep  reproach  at  bay  ? 
Where'er  I  turn  some  scandal  fouls  the  way. 

Dear  friend,  if  any  man  I  wished  to  please, 
'T  were  surely  you  whose  humor's  honied  ease 
Flows  flecked  with  gold  of  thought,  whose  gener 
ous  mind 
Sees  Paradise  regained  by  all  mankind, 


56  TO   GEORGE  WILLIAM   CURTIS. 

Whose  brave  example  still  to  vanward  shines, 
Checks  the  retreat,  and  spurs  our  lagging  lines. 
Was  I  too  bitter  ?     Who  his  phrase  can  choose 
That  sees  the  life-blood  of  his  dearest  ooze  ? 
I  loved  my  Country  so  as  only  they 
Who  love  a  mother  fit  to  die  for  may ; 
I  loved  her  old  renown,  her  stainless  fame,  — 
What  better  proof  than  that  I  loathed  her  shame  ? 
That  many  blamed  me  could  not  irk  me  long, 
But,  if  you  doubted,  must  I  not  be  wrong  ? 
'T  is  not  for  me  to  answer :  this  I  know, 
That  man  or  race  so  prosperously  low 
Sunk  in  success  that  wrath  they  cannot  feel, 
Shall  taste  the  spurn  of  parting  Fortune's  heel ; 
For  never  land  long  lease  of  empire  won 
Whose  sons  sate  silent  when  base  deeds  were  done. 


POSTSCRIPT,  1887. 

Curtis,  so  wrote  I  thirteen  years  ago, 

Tost  it  unfinished  by,  and  left  it  so  ; 

Found  lately,  I  have  pieced  it  out,  or  tried, 

Since  time  for  callid  juncture  was  denied. 

Some  of  the  verses  pleased  me,  it  is  true, 

And  still  were  pertinent,  —  those  honoring  you. 

These  now  I  offer  :  take  them,  if  you  will, 

Like  the  old  hand-grasp,  when  at  Shady  Hill 

We  met,  or  Staten  Island,  in  the  days 

When  life  was  its  own  spur,  nor  needed  praise. 

If  once  you  thought  me  rash,  no  longer  fear  ; 


TO   GEORGE  WILLIAM  CURTIS.  57 

Past  my  next  milestone  waits  my  seventieth  year. 

I  mount  no  longer  when  the  trumpets  call ; 

My  battle-harness  idles  on  the  wall, 

The  spider's  castle,  camping-ground  of  dust, 

Not  without  dints,  and  all  in  front,  I  trust. 

Shivering  sometimes  it  calls  me  as  it  hears 

Afar  the  charge's  tramp  and  clash  of  spears ; 

But 't  is  such  murmur  only  as  might  be 

The  sea-shell's  lost  tradition  of  the  sea, 

That  makes  me  muse  and  wonder  Where  ?  and 

When? 

While  from  my  cliff  I  watch  the  waves  of  men 
That  climb  to  break  midway  their  seeming  gain, 
And  think  it  triumph  if  they  shake  then-  chain. 
Little  I  ask  of  Fate ;  will  she  refuse 
Some  days  of  reconcilement  with  the  Muse  ? 
I  take  my  reed  again  and  blow  it  free 
Of  dusty  silence,  murmuring,  "  Sing  to  me !  " 
And,  as  its  stops  my  curious  touch  retries, 
The  stir  of  earlier  instincts  I  surprise,  — 
Instincts,  if  less  imperious,  yet  more  strong, 
And  happy  in  the  toil  that  ends  with  song. 

Home  am  I  come :  not,  as  I  hoped  might  be, 
To  the  old  haunts,  too  full  of  ghosts  for  me, 
But  to  the  olden  dreams  that  time  endears, 
And  the  loved   books  that   younger  grow  with 

years  ; 

To  country  rambles,  timing  with  rny  tread 
Some  happier  verse  that  carols  in  my  head, 


58  TO  GEORGE  WILLIAM  CURT 'IS. 

Yet  all  with  sense  of  something  vainly  mist, 
Of  something  lost,  but  when  I  never  wist. 
How  empty  seems  to  me  the  populous  street, 
One  figure  gone  I  daily  loved  to  meet,  — 
The  clear,  sweet  singer  with  the  crown  of  snow 
Not  whiter  than  the  thoughts  that  housed  below 
And,  ah,  what  absence  feel  I  at  my  side, 
Like  Dante  when  he  missed  his  laurelled  guide, 
What  sense  of  diminution  in  the  air 
Once  so  inspiring,  Emerson  not  there  ! 
But  life  is  sweet,  though  all  that  makes  it  sweet 
Lessen  like  sound  of  friends'  departing  feet, 
And  Death  is  beautiful  as  feet  of  friend 
Coming  with  welcome  at  our  journey's  end  ; 
For  me  Fate  gave,  whate'er  she  else  denied, 
A  nature  sloping  to  the  southern  side  ; 
I  thank  her  for  it,  though  when  clouds  arise 
Such  natures  double-darken  gloomy  skies. 
I  muse  upon  the  margin  of  the  sea, 
Our  common  pathway  to  the  new  To  Be, 
Watching  the  sails,  that  lessen  more  and  more, 
Of  good  and  beautiful  embarked  before  ; 
With  bits  of  wreck  I  patch  the  boat  shall  bear 
Me  to  that  unexhausted  Otherwhere, 
Whose  friendly-peopled  shore  I  sometimes  see, 
By  soft  mirage  uplifted,  beckon  me, 
Nor  sadly  hear,  as  lower  sinks  the  sun, 
My  moorings  to  the  past  snap  one  by  one. 


II. 

SENTIMENT. 


ENDYMION. 

A  MYSTICAL   COMMENT   ON  TITIAN'S   "SACRED 
AND   PROFANE   LOVE." 

I. 

MY  day  began  not  till  the  twilight  fell, 
And,  lo,  in  ether  from  heaven's  sweetest  well, 
The  New  Moon  swam  divinely  isolate 
In  maiden  silence,  she  that  makes  my  fate 
Haply  not  knowing  it,  or  only  so 
As  I  the  secrets  of  my  sheep  may  know ; 
Nor  ask  I  more,  entirely  blest  if  she, 
In  letting  me  adore,  ennoble  me 
To  height  of  what  the  Gods  meant  making  man, 
As  only  she  and  her  best  beauty  can. 
Mine  be  the  love  that  in  itself  can  find 
Seed  of  white  thoughts,  the  lilies  of  the  mind, 
Seed  of  that  glad  surrender  of  the  will 
That  finds  in  service  self's  true  purpose  still ; 
Love  that  in  outward  fairness  sees  the  tent 
Pitched  for  an  inmate  far  more  excellent ; 
Love  with  a  light  irradiate  to  the  core, 
Lit  at  her  lamp,  but  fed  from  inborn  store  ; 
Love  thrice-requited  with  the  single  joy 
Of  an  immaculate  vision  naught  could  cloy, 
(61) 


62  END  TM10N. 

Dearer  because,  so  high  beyond  my  scope, 
My  life  grew  rich  with  her,  unbribed  by  hope 
Of  other  guerdon  save  to  think  she  knew 
One  grateful  votary  paid  her  all  her  due  ; 
Happy  if  she,  high-radiant  there,  resigned 
To  his  sure  trust  her  image  in  his  mind. 
O  fairer  even  than  Peace  is  when  she  comes 
Husliing  War's  tumult,  and  retreating  drums 
Fade  to  a  murmur  like  the  sough  of  bees 
Hidden  among  the  noon-stilled  linden-trees, 
Bringer  of  quiet,  thou  that  canst  allay 
The  dust  and  din  and  travail  of  the  day, 
Strewer  of  Silence,  Giver  of  the  dew 
That  doth  our  pastures  and  our  souls  renew, 
Still  dwell  remote,  still  on  thy  shoreless  sea 
Float  unattained  in  sacred  empery, 
Still  light  my  thoughts,  nor  listen  to  a  prayer 
Would  make  thee  less  imperishably  fair  ! 

II. 

Can,  then,  my  twofold  nature  find  content 
In  vain  conceits  of  airy  blandishment  ? 
Ask  I  no  more  ?     Since  yesterday  I  task 
My  storm-strewn  thoughts  to  tell  me  what  I  ask 
Faint  premonitions  of  mutation  strange 
Steal  o'er  my  perfect  orb,  and,  with  the  change, 
Myself  am  changed  ;  the  shadow  of  my  earth 
Darkens  the  disc  of  that  celestial  worth 
Which  only  yesterday  could  still  suffice 
Upwards  to  waft  my  thoughts  in  sacrifice ; 


END TM ION.  63 

My  heightened  fancy  with  its  touches  warm 
Moulds  to  a  woman's  that  ideal  form  ; 
Nor  yet  a  woman's  wholly,  but  divine 
With  awe  her  purer  essence  bred  in  mine. 
Was  it  long  brooding  on  their  own  surmise, 
Which,  of  the  eyes  engendered,  fools  the  eyes, 
Or  have  I  seen  through  that  translucent  air 
A  Presence  shaped  in  its  seclusions  bare, 
My  Goddess  looking  on  me  from  above 
As  look  our  russet  maidens  when  they  love, 
But  high-uplifted  o'er  our  human  heat 
And  passion-paths  too  rough  for  her  pearl  feet  ? 

Slowly  the  Shape  took  outline  as  I  gazed 
At  her  full-orbed  or  crescent,  till,  bedazed 
With  wonder-working  light  that  subtly  wrought 
My  brain  to  its  own  substance,  steeping  thought 
In  trances  such  as  poppies  give,  I  saw 
Things  shut  from  vision  by  sight's  sober  law, 
Amorphous,  changeful,  but  defined  at  last 
Into  the  peerless  Shape  mine  eyes  hold  fast. 
This,  too,  at  first  I  worshipt :  soon,  like  wine, 
Her  eyes,  in  mine  poured,  frenzy-philtred  mine  ; 
Passion  put  Worship's  priestly  raiment  on 
And  to  the  woman  knelt,  the  Goddess  gone. 
Was  I,  then,  more  than  mortal  made  ?  or  she 
Less  than  divine  that  she  might  mate  with  me  ? 
If  mortal  merely,  could  my  nature  cope 
With  such  o'ermastery  of  maddening  hope  ? 
If  Goddess,  could  she  feel  the  blissful  woe 
That  women  in  their  self-surrender  know  ? 


64  ENDYMION. 

III. 

Long  she  abode  aloof  there  in  her  heaven, 
Far  as  the  grape-bunch  of  the  Pleiad  seven 
Beyond  my  madness'  utmost  leap  ;  but  here 
Mine  eyes  have  feigned  of  late  her  rapture  near, 
Moulded  of  mind-mist  that  broad  day  dispels, 
Here  in  these   shadowy  woods  and  brook-lulled 
dells. 

Have  no  heaven-habitants  e'er  felt  a  void 
In  hearts  sublimed  with  ichor  unalloyed  ? 
E'er  longed  to  mingle  with  a  mortal  fate 
Intense  with  pathos  of  its  briefer  date  ? 
Could  she  partake,  and  live,  our  human  stains  ? 
Even  with  the  thought  there  tingles  through  my 

veins 

Sense  of  unwarned  renewal ;  I,  the  dead, 
Receive  and  house  again  the  ardor  fled, 
As  once  Alcestis  ;  to  the  ruddy  brim 
Feel  masculine  virtue  flooding  every  limb, 
And  life,  like  Spring  returning,  brings  the  key 
That  sets  my  senses  from  their  winter  free, 
Dancing  like  naked  fauns  too  glad  for  shame. 
Her  passion,  purified  to  palest  flame, 
Can  it  thus  kindle  ?     Is  her  purpose  tliis  ? 
I  will  not  argue,  lest  I  lose  a  bliss 
That  makes  me  dream  Tithonus'  fortune  mine, 
(Or  what  of  it  was  palpably  divine 
Ere  came  the  fruitlessly  immortal  gift ;) 


ENDYMION.  65 

I  cannot  curb  my  hope's  imperious  drift 
That  wings  with  fire  my  dull  mortality  ; 
Though  fancy-forged,  't  is  all  I  feel  or  see. 

IV. 

My   Goddess   sinks ;    round  Latinos'    darkening 

brow 

Trembles  the  parting  of  her  presence  now, 
Faint  as  the  perfume  left  upon  the  grass 
By  her  limbs'  pressure  or  her  feet  that  pass 
By  me  conjectured,  but  conjectured  so 
As  tilings  I  touch  far  fainter  substance  show. 
Was  it  mine  eyes'  imposture  I  have  seen 
Flit  with  the  moonbeams  on  from  shade  to  sheen 
Through   the   wood-openings  ?     Nay,  I  see  her 

now 

Out  of  her  heaven  new-lighted,  from  her  brow 
The  hair  breeze-scattered,  like  loose  mists   that 

blow 

Across  her  crescent,  goldening  as  they  go 
High-kirtled  for  the  chase,  and  what  was  shown, 
Of  maiden  rondure,  like  the  rose  half-blown. 
If  dream,  turn  real !     If  a  vision,  stay  ! 
Take  mortal  shape,  my  philtre's  spell  obey  ! 
If  hags  compel  thee  from  thy  secret  sky 
With  gruesome  incantations,  why  not  I, 
Whose  only  magic  is  that  I  distil 
A  potion,  blent  of  passion,  thought,  and  will, 
Deeper  in  reach,  in  force  of  fate  more  rich, 
Than  e'er  was  juice  wrung  by  Thessalian  witch 


66  END  YMION. 

From  moon-enchanted  herbs,  —  a  potion  brewed 
Of  my  best  life  in  each  diviner  mood  ? 
Myself  the  elixir  am,  myself  the  bowl 
Seething  and  mantling  with  my  soul  of  soul. 
Taste  and  be  humanized  :  what  though  the  cup, 
With  thy  lips  frenzied,  shatter  ?     Drink  it  up  ! 
If  but  these  arms  may  clasp,  o'erquited  so, 
My  world,    thy  heaven,  all   life    means  I    shall 
know. 

V. 

Sure    she    hath  heard  my   prayer   and   granted 

half, 

As  Gods  do  who  at  mortal  madness  laugh. 
In  sleep  she  comes ;  she  visits  me  in  dreams, 
And,  as  her  image  in  a  thousand  streams, 
So  in  my  veins,  that  her  obey,  she  sees, 
Floating  and  flaming  there,  her  images 
Bear  to  my  little  world's  remotest  zone 
Glad  messages  of  her,  and  her  alone. 
With  silence-sandalled  Sleep  she  comes  to  me, 
(But  softer-footed,  sweeter-browed,  than  she,) 
In  motion  gracious  as  a  seagull's  wing, 
And  all  her  bright  limbs,  moving,  seem  to  sing. 
If  life's  most  solid  things  illusion  seem, 
Why  should   not   substance  wear   the   mask   of 

dream  ? 

Let  me  believe  so,  then,  if  so  I  may 
With  the  night's  bounty  feed  my  beggared  day. 
In  dreams  I  see  her  lay  the  goddess  down 


END  YM10N.  67 

With  bow  and  quiver,  and  her  crescent-crown 

Flicker  and  fade  away  to  dull  eclipse 

As  down  to  mine  she  deigns  her  longed-for  lips ; 

And  as  her  neck  my  happy  arms  enfold, 

Flooded  and  lustred  with  her  loosened  gold, 

She  whispers  words  each  sweeter  than  a  kiss  : 

Then,  wakened  with  the  shock  of  sudden  bliss, 

My  arms  are  empty,  my  awakener  fled, 

And,  silent  in  the  silent  sky  o'erhead, 

But  coldly  as  on  ice-plated  snow,  she  gleams, 

Herself  the  mother  and  the  child  of  dreams. 

VI. 

Gone  is  the  time  when  phantasms  could  appease 

My  quest  phantasmal  and  bring  cheated  ease  ; 

When,  if  she  glorified  my  dreams,  I  felt 

Through  all  my  limbs  a  change  immortal  melt 

At  touch  of  hers  illuminate  with  soul. 

Not  long  could  I  be  stilled  with  Fancy's  dole  ; 

Too  soon  the  mortal  mixture  in  me  caught 

Red  fire  from  her  celestial  flame,  and  fought 

For  tyrannous  control  in  all  my  veins  : 

My  fool's  prayer  was  accepted  ;  what  remains  ? 

Or  was  it  some  eidolon  merely,  sent 

By  her  who  rules  the  shades  in  banishment, 

To    mock   me   with   her   semblance  ?     Were   it 

thus, 

How  'scape  I  shame,  whose  will  was  traitorous  ? 
What  shall  compensate  an  ideal  dimmed  ? 
How  blanch  again  my  statue  virgin-limbed, 


68  END  YMION. 

Soiled  with  the  incense-smoke  her  chosen  priest 
Poured  more  profusely  as  within  decreased 
The  fire  unearthly,  fed  with  coals  from  far 
Within  the  soul's  shrine  ?     Could  my  fallen  star 
Be  set  in  heaven  again  by  prayers  and  tears 
And  quencliless  sacrifice  of  all  my  years, 
How  would  the  victim  to  the  flam  en  leap, 
And  life  for  life's  redemption  paid  hold  cheap ! 

But  what  resource  when  she  herself  descends 
From  her  blue  throne,  and  o'er  her  vassal  bends 
That  shape  thrice-deified  by  love,  those  eyes 
Wherein  the  Lethe  of  all  others  lies  ? 
When  my  white  queen  of  heaven's   remoteness 

tires, 

Herself  against  her  other  self  conspires, 
Takes  woman's  nature,  walks  in  mortal  ways, 
And  finds  in  my  remorse  her  beauty's  praise  ? 
Yet  all  would  I  renounce  to  dream  again 
The  dream  in  dreams  fulfilled  that  made  my  pain, 
My  noble  pain  that  heightened  all  my  years 
With  crowns  to  win  and  prowess-breeding  tears  ; 
Nay,  would  that  dream  renounce  once  more  to 

see 
Her  from  her  sky  there  looking  down  at  me  ! 

vn 

Goddess,  reclimb  thy  heaven,  and  be  once  more 

An  inaccessible  splendor  to  adore, 

A  faith,  a  hope  of  such  transcendent  worth 


END  YM ION.  69 

As  bred  ennobling  discontent  with  earth ; 
Give  back  the  longing,  back  the  elated  mood 
That,  fed  with  thee,  spurned  every  meaner  good  ; 
Give  even  the  spur  of  impotent  despair 
That,  without  hope,  still  bade  aspire  and  dare ; 
Give  back  the  need  to  worship  that  still  pours 
Down  to  the  soul  that  virtue  it  adores ! 

Nay,  brightest  and  most  beautiful,  deem  naught 
These  frantic  words,  the  reckless  wind  of  thought ; 
Still  stoop,  stih1  grant,  —  I  live  but  in  thy  will ; 
Be  what  thou  wilt,  but  be  a  woman  still ! 
Vainly  I  cried,  nor  could  myself  believe 
That  what  I  prayed  for  I  would  fain  receive. 
My  moon  is  set ;  my  vision  set  with  her  ; 
No  more  can  worship  vain  my  pulses  stir. 
Goddess  Triform,  I  own  thy  triple  spell, 
My  heaven's  queen,  —  queen,  too,  of  my  earth 
and  hell ! 


THE  BLACK  PREACHER. 

A   BRETON   LEGEND. 

AT  Carnac  in  Brittany,  close  on  the  bay, 
They  show  you  a  church,  or  rather  the  gray 
Ribs  of  a  dead  one,  left  there  to  bleach 
With  the  wreck  lying  near  on  the  crest  of  the 

beach, 

Roofless  and  splintered  with  thunder-stone, 
'Mid  lichen-blurred  gravestones  all  alone  ; 
'T  is  the  kind  of  ruin  strange  sights  to  see 
That  may  have  their  teaching  for  you  and  me. 

Something  like  this,  then,  my  guide  had  to  tell, 
Perched  on  a  saint  cracked  across  when  he  fell ; 
But   since    I   might  chance  give  his  meaning  a 

wrench, 

He  talking  his  patois  and  I  English-French, 
1 11  put  what  he  told  me,  preserving  the  tone, 
In  a  rhymed  prose  that  makes  it  half  his,  half  my 

own. 

An  abbey-church  stood  here,  once  on  a  time, 
Built  as  a  death-bed  atonement  for  crime  : 
'T  was  for  somebody's  sins,  I  know  not  whose ; 
But  sinners  are  plenty,  and  you  can  choose. 
(70) 


THE  BLACK  PREACHER.  71 

Though  a  cloister  now  of  the  dusk-winged  bat, 
'T  was  rich  enough  once,  and  the  brothers  grew 

fat, 

Looser  in  girdle  and  purpler  in  jowl, 
Singing  good  rest  to  the  founder's  lost  soul. 

But  one  day  came  Northmen,  and  lithe  tongues 

of  fire 

Lapped  up  the  chapter-house,  licked  off  the  spire, 
And  left  all  a  rubbish-heap,  black  and  dreary, 
Where  only  the  wind  sings  miserere. 

No  priest  has  kneeled  since  at  the  altar's  foot, 
Whose  crannies  are  searched  by  the  nightshade's 

root, 

Nor  sound  of  service  is  ever  heard, 
Except  from  throat  of  the  unclean  bird, 
Hooting  to  unassoiled  shapes  as  they  pass 
In  midnights  unholy  his  witches'  mass, 
Or  shouting  "  Ho !  ho  !  "  from  the  belfry  high 
As  the  Devil's  sabbath-train  whirls  by. 

But  once  a  year,  on  the  eve  of  All-Souls, 
Through  these  arches  dishallowed  the  organ  rolls, 
Fingers  long  fleshless  the  bell-ropes  work, 
The  chimes  peal  muffled  with  sea-mists  mirk, 
The  skeleton  windows  are  traced  anew 
On  the  baleful  flicker  of  corpse-lights  blue, 
And  the  ghosts  must  come,  so  the  legend  saith, 
To  a  preaching  of  Reverend  Doctor  Death. 


72  THE  BLACK  PREACHER. 

Abbots,  monks,  barons,  and  ladies  fair 

Hear  the  dull  summons  and  gather  there  : 

No  rustle  of  silk  now,  no  clink  of  mail, 

Nor  ever  a  one  greets  his  church-mate  pale  ; 

No  knight  whispers  love  in  the  chatelaine's  ear, 

His  next-door  neighbor  this  five  hundred  year  ; 

No  monk  has  a  sleek  lenedicite 

For  the  great  lord  shadowy  now  as  he  ; 

Nor  needeth  any  to  hold  his  breath, 

Lest  he  lose  the  least  word  of  Doctor  Death. 

He  chooses  his  text  in  the  Book  Divine, 

Tenth  verse  of  the  Preacher  in  chapter  nine :  — 

"  *  Whatsoever  thy  hand  shall  find  thee  to  do, 

That  do  with  thy  whole  might,  or  thou  shalt  rue  ; 

For  no  man  is  wealthy,  or  wise,  or  brave, 

In  that  quencher  of  might-be's  and  would-be's, 

the  grave.' 

Bid  by  the  Bridegroom,  *  To-morrow,'  ye  said, 
And  To-morrow  was  digging  a  trench  for  your 

bed; 

Ye  said,  *  God  can  wait ;  let  us  finish  our  wine  ; ' 
Ye  had  wearied  Him,  fools,  and  that  last  knock 

was  mine !  " 

But  I  can't  pretend  to  give  you  the  sermon. 

Or   say  if   the   tongue  were  French,  Latin,    or 

German  ; 

Whatever  he  preached  in,  I  give  you  my  word 
The  meaning  was  easy  to  all  that  heard  ; 


THE  BLACK  PREACHER.  73 

Famous  preachers  there  have  heen  and  be, 

But  never  was  one  so  convincing  as  he ; 

So  blunt  was  never  a  begging  friar, 

No  Jesuit's  tongue  so  barbed  with  fire, 

Cameronian  never,  nor  Methodist, 

Wrung  gall  out  of  Scripture  with  such  a  twist. 

And  would  you  know  who  his  hearers  must  be  ? 
I  tell  you  just  what  my  guide  told  me  : 
Excellent  teaching  men  have,  day  and  night, 
From  two  earnest  friars,  a  black  and  a  white, 
The  Dominican  Death  and  the  Carmelite  Life ; 
And  between  these  two  there  is  never  strife, 
For  each  has  his  separate  office  and  station, 
And  each  his  own  work  in  the  congregation  ; 
Whoso  to  the  white  brother  deafens  his  ears, 
And  cannot  be  wrought  on  by  blessings  or  tears, 
Awake  in  his  coffin  must  wait  and  wait, 
In  that  blackness  of  darkness  that  means  too  late, 
And  come  once  a  year,  when  the  ghost-bell  tolls, 
As  till  Doomsday  it  shall  on  the  eve  of  All-Souls, 
To  hear  Doctor  Death,  whose  words  smart  with 

the  brine 
Of  the  Preacher,  the  tenth  verse  of  chapter  nine. 


ARCADIA  REDIVIVA. 

I,  WALKING  the  familiar  street, 

While  a  crammed  horse-car  jingled  through  it, 
Was  lifted  from  my  prosy  feet 

And  in  Arcadia  ere  I  knew  it. 

Fresh  sward  for  gravel  soothed  my  tread, 
And  shepherd's  pipes  my  ear  delighted ; 

The  riddle  may  be  lightly  read  : 
I  met  two  lovers  newly  plighted. 

They  murmured  by  in  happy  care, 

New  plans  for  paradise  devising, 
Just  as  the  moon,  with  pensive  stare, 

O'er  Mistress  Craigie's  pines  was  rising. 

Astarte,  known  nigh  threescore  years, 
Me  to  no  speechless  rapture  urges  ; 

Them  in  Elysium  she  enspheres, 

Queen,  from  of  old,  of  thaumaturges. 

The  railings  put  forth  bud  and  bloom, 

The  house-fronts  all  with  myrtles  twine  them, 

And  light-winged  Loves  in  every  room 

Make  nests,  and  then  with  kisses  line  them. 
(74) 


ARCADIA  REDIV1VA.  75 

O  sweetness  of  untasted  life  ! 

O  dream,  its  own  supreme  fulfilment ! 
O  hours  with  all  illusion  rife, 

As  ere  the  heart  divined  what  ill  meant ! 

"  Et  ego"  sighed  I  to  myself, 

And  strove  some  vain  regrets  to  bridle, 
"  Though  now  laid  dusty  on  the  shelf, 

Was  hero  once  of  such  an  idyl ! 

"  An  idyl  ever  newly  sweet, 

Although  since  Adam's  day  recited, 
Whose  measures  time  them  to  Love's  feet, 
Whose  sense  is  every  ill  requited." 

Maiden,  if  I  may  counsel,  drain 

Each  drop  of  this  enchanted  season, 

For  even  our  honeymoons  must  wane, 
Convicted  of  green  cheese  by  Reason. 

And  none  will  seem  so  safe  from  change, 
Nor  in  such  skies  benignant  hover, 

As  this,  beneath  whose  witchery  strange 
You  tread  on  rose-leaves  with  your  lover. 

The  glass  unfilled  all  tastes  can  fit, 
As  round  its  brim  Conjecture  dances  ; 

For  not  Mephisto's  self  hath  wit 
To  draw  such  vintages  as  Fancy's. 


7G  ARCADIA  REDIVIVA. 

"When  our  pulse  beats  its  minor  key, 

When  play-time  halves  and  school-time  doubles, 
Age  fills  the  cup  with  serious  tea, 

Which  once  Dame  Clicquot  starred  with  bub 
bles. 


"  Fie,  Mr.  Graybeard  !     Is  this  wise  ? 

Is  this  the  moral  of  a  poet, 
Who,  when  the  plant  of  Eden  dies, 

Is  privileged  once  more  to  sow  it  ? 

"  That  herb  of  clay-disdaining  root, 
From  stars  secreting  what  it  feeds  on, 

Is  burnt-out  passion's  slag  and  soot 
Fit  soil  to  strew  its  dainty  seeds  on  ? 

"  Pray,  why,  if  in  Arcadia  once, 

Need  one  so  soon  forget  the  way  there  ? 

Or  why,  once  there,  be  such  a  dunce 
As  not  contentedly  to  stay  there  ?  " 

Dear  child,  't  was  but  a  sorry  jest, 
And  from  my  heart  I  hate  the  cynic 

Who  makes  the  Book  of  Life  a  nest 
For  comments  staler  than  rabbinic. 

If  Love  his  simple  spell  but  keep, 
Life  with  ideal  eyes  to  flatter, 

The  Grail  itself  were  crockery  cheap 
To  Every-day's  communion-platter. 


ARCADIA  REDIVIVA.  77 

One  Darby  is  to  me  well  known, 

Who,  as  the  hearth  between  them  blazes, 

Sees  the  old  moonlight  shine  on  Joan, 
And  float  her  youthward  in  its  hazes. 

He  rubs  his  spectacles,  he  stares,  — 

'T  is  the  same  face  that  witched  him  early ! 

He  gropes  for  his  remaining  hairs,  — 
Is  this  a  fleece  that  feels  so  curly  ? 

"  Good  heavens  !  but  now  't  was  winter  gray, 
And  I  of  years  had  more  than  plenty  ; 

The  almanac  's  a  fool !     'T  is  May  ! 
Hang  family  Bibles  !     I  am  twenty  ! 

"  Come,  Joan,  your  arm  ;  we  '11  walk  the  room  — 
The  lane,  I  mean  —  do  you  remember  ? 

How  confident  the  roses  bloom, 
As  if  it  ne'er  could  be  December  ! 

"  Nor  more  it  shall,  while  in  your  eyes 
My  heart  its  summer  heat  recovers, 

And  you,  howe'er  your  mirror  lies, 

Find  your  old  beauty  in  your  lover's." 


THE  NEST. 

MAY. 

WHEN  oaken  woods  with  buds  are  pink, 
And  new-come  birds  each  morning  sing, 

When  fickle  May  on  Summer's  brink 
Pauses,  and  knows  not  which  to  fling, 

Whether  fresh  bud  and  bloom  again, 

Or  hoar-frost  silvering  hill  and  plain, 

Then  from  the  honeysuckle  gray 
The  oriole  with  experienced  quest 

Twitches  the  fibrous  bark  away, 
The  cordage  of  his  hammock-nest, 

Cheering  his  labor  with  a  note 

Rich  as  the  orange  of  his  throat 

High  o'er  the  loud  and  dusty  road 
The  soft  gray  cup  in  safety  swings, 

To  brim  ere  August  with  its  load 

Of  downy  breasts  and  throbbing  wings, 

O'er  which  the  friendly  elm-tree  heaves 

An  emerald  roof  with  sculptured  eaves. 

Below,  the  noisy  World  drags  by 
In  the  old  way,  because  it  must, 
(78) 


THE  NEST.  79 

The  bride  with  heartbreak  in  her  eye, 
The  mourner  following  hated  dust : 
Thy  duty,  winged  flame  of  Spring, 
Is  but  to  love,  and  fly,  and  sing. 

Oh,  happy  life,  to  soar  and  sway 

Above  the  life  by  mortals  led, 
Singing  the  merry  months  away, 

Master,  not  slave  of  daily  bread, 
And,  when  the  Autumn  comes,  to  flee 
Wherever  sunshine  beckons  thee  ! 

PALINODE. DECEMBER. 

Like  some  lorn  abbey  now,  the  wood 

Stands  roofless  in  the  bitter  air ; 
In  ruins  on  its  floor  is  strewed 

The  carven  foliage  quaint  and  rare, 
And  homeless  winds  complain  along 
The  columned  choir  once  thrilled  with  song. 

And  thou,  dear  nest,  whence  joy  and  praise 
The  thankful  oriole  used  to  pour, 

Swing'st  empty  while  the  north  winds  chase 
Their  snowy  swarms  from  Labrador : 

But,  loyal  to  the  happy  past, 

I  love  thee  still  for  what  thou  wast. 

Ah,  when  the  Summer  graces  flee 

From  other  nests  more  dear  than  thou, 


80  THE  NEST. 

And,  where  June  crowded  once,  I  see 

Only  bare  trunk  and  disleaved  bough ; 
When  springs  of  life  that  gleamed  and  gushed 
Run  chilled,  and  slower,  and  are  hushed ; 

When  our  own  branches,  naked  long, 
The  vacant  nests  of  Spring  betray, 

Nurseries  of  passion,  love,  and  song 
That  vanished  as  our  year  grew  gray ; 

When  Life  drones  o'er  a  tale  twice  told 

O'er  embers  pleading  with  the  cold,  — 

I  '11  trust,  that,  like  the  birds  of  Spring, 
Our  good  goes  not  without  repair, 

But  only  flies  to  soar  and  sing 
Far  off  in  some  diviner  air, 

Where  we  shall  find  it  in  the  calms 

Of  that  fair  garden  'neath  the  palms. 


A  YOUTHFUL  EXPERIMENT  IN  ENG 
LISH  HEXAMETERS. 

IMPRESSIONS    OF   HOMER. 

SOMETIMES  come  pauses  of  calm,  when  the  rapt 

bard,  holding  his  heart  back, 
Over   his  deep  mind  muses,  as  when  o'er  awe- 
stricken  ocean 
Poises  a  heapt  cloud  luridly,  ripening  the  gale 

and  the  thunder ; 
Slow  rolls  onward  the  verse  with  a  long  swell 

heaving  and  swinging, 
Seeming   to  wait   till,  gradually  wid'ning   from 

far-off  horizons, 
Piling  the  deeps  up,    heaping   the  glad-hearted 

surges  before  it, 
Gathers  the  thought  as  a  strong  wind  darkening 

and  cresting  the  tumult. 
Then  every  pause,  every  heave,  each  trough  in 

the  waves,  has  its  meaning ; 
Full-sailed,   forth   like    a   tall   ship  steadies  the 

theme,  and  around  it, 
Leaping   beside  it  in  glad  strength,  running  in 

wild  glee  beyond  it, 
(81) 


82  A    YOUTHFUL  EXPERIMENT. 

Harmonies  billow  exulting  and  floating  the  soul 

where  it  lists  them, 
Swaying  the  listener's  fantasy  hither  and  thither 

like  driftweed. 


BIRTHDAY  VERSES. 

WRITTEN   IN   A   CHILD'S    ALBUM. 

JT  WAS  sung  of  old  in  hut  and  hall 
How  once  a  king  in  evil  hour 
Hung  musing  o'er  his  castle  wall, 
And,  lost  in  idle  dreams,  let  fall 
Into  the  sea  his  ring  of  power. 

Then,  let  him  sorrow  as  he  might, 
And  pledge  his  daughter  and  his  throne 
To  who  restored  the  jewel  bright, 
The  broken  spell  would  ne'er  unite ; 
The  grim  old  ocean  held  its  own. 

Those  awful  powers  on  man  that  wait, 
On  man,  the  beggar  or  the  king, 
To  hovel  bare  or  hall  of  state 
A  magic  ring  that  masters  fate 
With  each  succeeding  birthday  bring. 

Therein  are  set  four  jewels  rare : 
Pearl  winter,  summer's  ruby  blaze, 
Spring's  emerald,  and,  than  all  more  fair, 
Fall's  pensive  opal,  doomed  to  bear 
A  heart  of  fire  bedreamed  with  haze. 
(83) 


84  BIRTHDAY  VERSES. 

To  him  the  simple  spell  who  knows 
The  spirits  of  the  ring  to  sway, 
Fresh  power  with  every  sunrise  flows, 
And  royal  pursuivants  are  those 
That  fly  his  mandates  to  obey. 

But  he  that  with  a  slackened  will 
Dreams  of  things  past  or  things  to  be, 
From  him  the  charm  is  slipping  still, 
And  drops,  ere  he  suspect  the  ill, 
Into  the  inexorable  sea- 


ESTRANGEMENT. 

THE  path  from  me  to  you  that  led, 

Untrodden  long,  with  grass  is  grown,  — 

Mute  carpet  that  his  lieges  spread 
Before  the  Prince  Oblivion 

When  he  goes  visiting  the  dead. 

And  who  are  they  but  who  forget  ? 

You,  who  my  coming  could  surmise 
Ere  any  hint  of  me  as  yet 

Warned  other  ears  and  other  eyes, 
See  the  path  blurred  without  regret. 

But  when  I  trace  its  windings  sweet 
With  saddened  steps,  at  every  spot 

That  feels  the  memory  in  my  feet, 
Each  grass-blade  turns  forget-me-not, 

Where  murmuring  bees  your  name  repeat. 
(85) 


PHCEBE. 

ERE  pales  in  Heaven  the  morning  star, 
A  bird,  the  loneliest  of  its  kind, 
Hears  Dawn's  faint  footfall  from  afar 
While  all  its  mates  are  dumb  and  blind. 

It  is  a  wee  sad-colored  thing, 
As  shy  and  secret  as  a  maid, 
That,  ere  in  choir  the  robins  ring, 
Pipes  its  own  name  like  one  afraid. 

It  seems  pain-prompted  to  repeat 
The  story  of  some  ancient  ill, 
But  Phoebe  !  Phoebe  !  sadly  sweet 
Is  all  it  says,  and  then  is  still. 

It  calls  and  listens.     Earth  and  sky, 
Hushed  by  the  pathos  of  its  fate, 
Listen  :  no  whisper  of  reply 
Comes  from  its  doom-dissevered  mate. 

Phoebe  !  it  calls  and  calls  again, 
And  Ovid,  could  he  but  have  heard, 
Had  hung  a  legendary  pain 
About  the  memory  of  the  bird  ; 
(86) 


PHOEBE.  87 

A  pain  articulate  so  long 
In  penance  of  some  mouldered  crime 
Whose  ghost  still  flies  the  Furies'  thong 
Down  the  waste  solitudes  of  time. 

Waif  of  the  young  World's  wonder-hour, 
When  gods  found  mortal  maidens  fair, 
And  will  malign  was  joined  with  power 
Love's  kindly  laws  to  overbear, 

Like  Progne,  did  it  feel  the  stress 
And  coil  of  the  prevailing  words 
Close  round  its  being,  and  compress 
Man's  ampler  nature  to  a  bird's  ? 

One  only  memory  left  of  all 
The  motley  crowd  of  vanished  scenes, 
Hers,  and  vain  impulse  to  recall 
By  repetition  what  it  means. 

Phoebe  !  is  all  it  has  to  say 
In  plaintive  cadence  o'er  and  o'er, 
Like  children  that  have  lost  their  way, 
And  know  their  names,  but  nothing  more. 

Is  it  a  type,  since  Nature's  Lyre 
Vibrates  to  every  note  in  man, 
Of  that  insatiable  desire, 
Meant  to  be  so  since  life  began  ? 


88  PIKEBE. 

I,  in  strange  lands  at  gray  of  dawn, 
Wakeful,  have  heard  that  fruitless  plaint 
Through  Memory's  chamhers  deep  withdrawn 
Renew  its  iterations  faint. 

So  nigh  !  yet  from  remotest  years 
It  summons  back  its  magic,  rife 
With  longings  unappeased,  and  tears 
Drawn  from  the  very  source  of  life. 


DAS   EWIG-WEIBLICHE. 

How  was  I  worthy  so  divine  a  loss, 

Deepening    my    midnights,    kindling   all   my 


morns  t 


Why  waste   such   precious   wood   to    make   my 

cross, 
Such  far-sought  roses  for  my  crown  of  thorns  ? 

And  when  she  came,  how  earned  I  such  a  gift  ? 

Why  spend  on  me,  a  poor  earth-delving  mole, 
The  fireside  sweetnesses,  the  heavenward  lift, 

The  hourly  mercy,  of  a  woman's  soul  ? 

Ah,  did  we  know  to  give  her  all  her  right, 

What  wonders   even   in   our   poor   clay  were 
done ! 

It  is  not  Woman  leaves  us  to  our  night, 

But  our  brute  earth  that  grovels  from  her  sun. 

Our  nobler  cultured  fields  and  gracious  domes 
We  whirl  too  oft  from  her  who  still  shines  on 

To  light  in  vain  our  caves  and  clefts,  the  homes 
Of  night-bird  instincts  pained  till  she  be  gone. 
(89) 


90  DAS  EWIG-WEIBLIC11E. 

Still  must  this  body  starve  our  souls  with  shade ; 

But  when  Death  makes  us  what  we  were  be 
fore, 
Then  shall  her  sunshine  all  our  depths  invade, 

And  not  a  shadow  stain  heaven's  crystal  floor. 


THE  RECALL. 

COME  back  before  the  birds  are  flown, 
Before  the  leaves  desert  the  tree, 
And,  through  the  lonely  alleys  blown, 
Whisper  their  vain  regrets  to  me 
Who  drive  before  a  blast  more  rude, 
The  plaything  of  my  gusty  mood, 
In  vain  pursuing  and  pursued  ! 

Nay,  come  although  the  boughs  be  bare, 
Though  snowflakes  fledge  the  summer's  nest, 
And  in  some  far  Ausonian  air 
The  thrush,  your  minstrel,  warm  his  breast. 
Come,  sunshine's  treasurer,  and  bring 
To  doubting  flowers  their  faith  in  spring, 
To  birds  and  me  the  need  to  sing ! 
(91) 


ABSENCE. 

SLEEP  is  Death's  image,  —  poets  tell  us  so  ; 
But  Absence  is  the  bitter  self  of  Death, 
And,  you  away,  Life's  lips  their  red  forego, 
Parched  in  an  air  unfreshened  by  your  breath. 

Light  of  those  eyes  that  made  the  light  of  mine, 
Where  shine  you  ?     On  what  happier  fields  and 

flowers  ? 

Heaven's  lamps  renew  their  lustre  less  divine, 
But  only  serve  to  count  my  darkened  hours. 

If  with  your  presence  went  your  image  too. 
That  brain-born  ghost  my  path  would  never  cross 
Which  meets  me  now  where'er  I  once  met  you, 
Then  vanishes,  to  multiply  my  loss. 
(92) 


MONNA   LISA. 

SHE  gave  me  all  that  woman  can, 
Nor  her  soul's  nunnery  forego, 
A  confidence  that  man  to  man 
Without  remorse  can  never  show. 

Rare  art,  that  can  the  sense  refine 
Till  not  a  pulse  rebellious  stirs, 
And,  since  she  never  can  be  mine, 
Makes  it  seem  sweeter  to  be  hers  ! 
(93) 


THE   OPTIMIST. 

TURBID  from  London's  noise  and  smoke, 
Here  I  find  air  and  quiet  too : 
Air  filtered  through  the  beech  and  oak, 
Quiet  by  nothing  harsher  broke 
Than  wood-dove's  meditative  coo. 

The  Truce  of  God  is  here  ;  the  breeze 
Sighs  as  men  sigh  relieved  from  care, 
Or  tilts  as  lightly  in  the  trees 
As  might  a  robin :  all  is  ease, 
With  pledge  of  ampler  ease  to  spare. 

Repose  fills  all  the  generous  space 
Of  undulant  plain  ;  the  rook  and  crow 
Hush ;  't  is  as  if  a  silent  grace, 
By  Nature  murmured,  calmed  the  face 
Of  Heaven  above  and  Earth  below. 

From  past  and  future  toils  I  rest, 
One  Sabbath  pacifies  my  year  ; 
I  am  the  halcyon,  this  my  nest ; 
And  all  is  safely  for  the  best 
While  the  World 's  there  and  I  am  here. 
(94) 


THE  OPTIMIST.  05 

So  I  turn  tory  for  the  nonce, 
And  think  the  radical  a  bore, 
Who  cannot  see,  thick-witted  dunce, 
That  what  was  good  for  people  once 
Must  be  as  good  forevermore. 

Sun,  sink  no  deeper  down  the  sky ; 
Earth,  never  change  this  summer  mood ; 
Breeze,  loiter  thus  forever  by, 
Stir  the  dead  leaf  or  let  it  lie  : 
Since  I  am  happy,  all  is  good. 

MIDDLETON,  August,  1884. 


ON  BURNING  SOME  OLD  LETTERS. 

WITH  what  odorous  woods  and  spices 
Spared  for  royal  sacrifices, 
With  what  costly  gums  seld-seen, 
Hoarded  to  embalm  a  queen, 
With  what  frankincense  and  myrrh, 
Burn  these  precious  parts  of  her, 
Full  of  life  and  light  and  sweetness 
As  a  summer  day's  completeness, 
Joy  of  sun  and  song  of  bird 
Running  wild  in  every  word, 
Full  of  all  the  superhuman 
Grace  and  winsomeness  of  woman  ? 

O'er  these  leaves  her  wrist  has  slid, 
Thrilled  with  veins  where  fire  is  hid 
'Neath  the  skin's  pellucid  veil, 
Like  the  opal's  passion  pale  ; 
This  her  breath  hath  sweetened  ;  this 
Still  seems  trembling  with  the  kiss 
She  half-ventured  on  my  name, 
Brow  and  cheek  and  throat  aflame ; 
Over  all  caressing  lies 
Sunshine  left  there  by  her  eyes ; 
From  them  all  an  effluence  rare 
(96) 


ON  BURNING  SOME  OLD  LETTERS.       97 

With  her  nearness  fills  the  air, 
Till  the  murmur  I  half-hear 
Of  her  light  feet  drawing  near. 

Rarest  woods  were  coarse  and  rough, 
Sweetest  spice  not  sweet  enough, 
Too  impure  all  earthly  fire 
For  this  sacred  funeral-pyre  ; 
These  rich  relics  must  suffice 
For  their  own  dear  sacrifice. 

Seek  we  first  an  altar  fit 
For  such  victims  laid  on  it : 
It  shall  be  this  slab  brought  home 
In  old  happy  days  from  Rome,  — 
Lazuli,  once  blest  to  line 
Dian's  inmost  cell  and  shrine. 
Gently  now  I  lay  them  there, 
Pure  as  Dian's  forehead  bare, 
Yet  suffused  with  warmer  hue, 
Such  as  only  Latmos  knew. 

Fire  I  gather  from  the  sun 
In  a  virgin  lens :  't  is  done  ! 
Mount  the  flames,  red,  yellow,  blue, 
As  her  moods  were  shining  through, 
Of  the  moment's  impulse  born,  — 
Moods  of  sweetness,  playful  scorn, 
Half  defiance,  half  surrender, 
More  than  cruel,  more  than  tender, 


98       ON  BURNING  SOME  OLD  LETTERS. 

Flouts,  caresses,  sunshine,  shade, 
Gracious  doublings  of  a  maid 
Infinite  in  guileless  art, 
Playing  hide-seek  with  her  heart. 

On  the  altar  now,  alas, 
There  they  lie  a  crinkling  mass, 
Writhing  still,  as  if  with  grief 
Went  the  life  from  every  leaf ; 
Then  (heart-breaking  palimpsest !) 
Vanishing  ere  wholly  guessed, 
Suddenly  some  lines  flash  back, 
Traced  in  lightning  on  the  black, 
And  confess,  till  now  denied, 
All  the  fire  they  strove  to  hide. 
What  they  told  me,  sacred  trust, 
Stays  to  glorify  my  dust, 
There  to  burn  through  dusk  and  damp 
Like  a  mage's  deathless  lamp, 
While  an  atom  of  this  frame 
Lasts  to  feed  the  dainty  flame. 

All  is  ashes  now,  but  they 

In  my  soul  are  laid  away, 

And  their  radiance  round  me  hovers 

Soft  as  moonlight  over  lovers, 

Shutting  her  and  me  alone 

In  dream-Edens  of  our  own  ; 

First  of  lovers  to  invent 

Love,  and  teach  men  what  it  meant. 


THE  PROTEST. 

I  COULD  not  bear  to  see  those  eyes 

On  all  with  wasteful  largesse  shine, 

And  that  delight  of  welcome  rise 

Like  sunshine  strained  through  amber  wine, 

But  that  a  glow  from  deeper  skies, 

From  conscious  fountains  more  divine, 

Is  (is  it  ?)  mine. 

Be  beautiful  to  all  mankind, 
As  Nature  fashioned  thee  to  be ; 
'T  would  anger  me  did  all  not  find 
The  sweet  perfection  that 's  in  thee  : 
Yet  keep  one  charm  of  charms  behind,  — 
Nay,  thou  'rt  so  rich,  keep  two  or  three 
For  (is  it  ?)  me  ! 

(99) 


THE  PETITION. 

OH,  tell  me  less  or  tell  me  more, 
Soft  eyes  with  mystery  at  the  core, 
That  always  seem  to  meet  my  own 
Frankly  as  pansies  fully  blown, 
Yet  waver  still  'tween  no  and  yes ! 

So  swift  to  cavil  and  deny, 
Then  parley  with  concessions  shy, 
Dear  eyes,  that  share  their  youth  with  mine 
And  through  my  inmost  shadows  shine, 
Oh,  tell  me  more  or  tell  me  less ! 
(100) 


FACT  OR  FANCY? 

IN  town  I  hear,  scarce  wakened  yet, 
My  neighbor's  clock  behind  the  wall 
Record  the  day's  increasing  debt. 
And  Cuckoo  !  Cuckoo  !  faintly  call. 

Our  senses  run  in  deepening  grooves, 
Thrown  out  of  which  they  lose  their  tact, 
And  consciousness  with  effort  moves 
From  habit  past  to  present  fact. 

So,  in  the  country  waked  to-day, 
I  hear,  unwitting  of  the  change, 
A  cuckoo's  throb  from  far  away 
Begin  to  strike,  nor  think  it  strange. 

The  sound  creates  its  wonted  frame : 
My  bed  at  home,  the  songster  hid 
Behind  the  wainscoting,  —  all  came 
As  long  association  bid. 

I  count  to  learn  how  late  it  is, 
Until,  arrived  at  thirty-four, 
I  question,  "  What  strange  world  is  this 
Whose  lavish  hours  would  make  me  poor  ? 
(101) 


102  FACT  OR  FANCY? 

Cuckoo  !  Cuckoo  !     Still  on  it  went, 
With  hints  of  mockery  in  its  tone  ; 
How  could  such  hoards  of  time  be  spent 
By  one  poor  mortal's  wit  alone  ? 

I  have  it !     Grant,  ye  kindly  Powers, 

I  from  this  spot  may  never  stir, 

If  only  these  uncounted  hours 

May  pass,  and  seem  too  short,  with  Her ! 

But  who  She  is,  her  form  and  face, 
These  to  the  world  of  dream  belong ; 
She  moves  through  fancy's  visioned  space, 
Unbodied,  like  the  cuckoo's  song. 


AGRO-DOLCE. 

ONE  kiss  from  all  others  prevents  me, 
And  sets  all  my  pulses  astir, 
And  burns  on  my  lips  and  torments  me : 
'T  is  the  kiss  that  I  fain  would  give  her. 

One  kiss  for  all  others  requites  me, 
Although  it  is  never  to  be, 
And  sweetens  my  dreams  and  invites  me 
'T  is  the  kiss  that  she  dare  not  give  me. 

Ah,  could  it  be  mine,  it  were  sweeter 
Than  honey  bees  garner  in  dream, 
Though  its  bliss  on  my  lips  were  fleeter 
Than  a  swallow's  dip  to  the  stream. 

And  yet,  thus  denied,  it  can  never 
In  the  prose  of  life  vanish  away  ; 
O'er  my  lips  it  must  hover  forever, 
The  sunshine  and  shade  of  my  day. 
(103) 


THE   BROKEN   TRYST. 

WALKING  alone  where  we  walked  together, 
When  June  was  breezy  and  blue, 
I  watch  in  the  gray  autumnal  weather 
The  leaves  fall  inconstant  as  you. 

If  a  dead  leaf  startle  behind  me, 
I  think  't  is  your  garment's  hem, 
And,  oh,  where  no  memory  could  find  me, 
Might  I  whirl  away  with  them  ! 
(104) 


CASA  SIN  ALMA. 

RECUERDO    DE   MADRID. 

SILENCIOSO  por  la  puerta 
Voy  de  su  casa  desierta 
Do  siempre  feliz  entre', 
Y  la  encuentro  en  vano  abierta 
Cual  la  boca  de  una  muerta 
Despues  que  el  alma  se 
(105) 


A    CHRISTMAS  CAROL. 

FOB    THE     SUNDAY-SCHOOL     CHILDREN     OF     THE 
CHURCH    OF   THE   DISCIPLES. 

"  WHAT  means  this  glory  round  our  feet," 

The  Magi  mused,  "  more  bright  than  morn  ?  " 

And  voices  chanted  clear  and  sweet, 

"  To-day  the  Prince  of  Peace  is  born  !  " 

"  What  means  that  star,"  the  Shepherds  said, 
"  That  brightens  through  the  rocky  glen  ?  " 

And  angels,  answering  overhead, 

Sang,  "  Peace  on  earth,  good-will  to  men !  " 

JT  is  eighteen  hundred  years  and  more 
Since  those  sweet  oracles  were  dumb ; 

We  wait  for  Him,  like  them  of  yore ; 
Alas,  He  seems  so  slow  to  come ! 

But  it  was  said,  in  words  of  gold 

No  time  or  sorrow  e'er  shall  dim, 
That  little  children  might  be  bold 

In  perfect  trust  to  come  to  Him. 

All  round  about  our  feet  shall  shine 
A  light  like  that  the  wise  men  saw, 
(106) 


A  CHRISTMAS  CAROL.  107 

If  we  our  loving  wills  incline 

To  that  sweet  Life  which  is  the  Law. 


So  shall  we  learn  to  understand 

The  simple  faith  of  shepherds  then, 

And,  clasping  kindly  hand  in  hand, 

Sing,  "  Peace  on  earth,  good-will  to  men !  " 

And  they  who  do  their  souls  no  wrong, 
But  keep  at  eve  the  faith  of  morn, 

Shall  daily  hear  the  angel-song, 

"  To-day  the  Prince  of  Peace  is  born !  " 


MY  PORTRAIT  GALLERY. 

OFT  round  my  hall  of  portraiture  I  gaze, 
By  Memory  reared,  the  artist  wise  and  holy, 
From  stainless  quarries  of  deep-buried  days. 
There,  as  I  muse  in  soothing  melancholy, 
Your  faces  glow  in  more  than  mortal  youth, 
Companions  of  my  prime,  now  vanished  wholly, 
The  loud,  impetuous  boy,  the  low-voiced  maiden. 
Ah,  never  master  that  drew  mortal  breath 
Can  match  thy  portraits,  just  and  generous  Death, 
Whose  brush  with  sweet  regretful  tints  is  laden  ! 
Thou  paintest  that  which  struggled  here  below 
Half  understood,  or  understood  for  woe, 
And  with  a  sweet  forewarning 
Mak'st  round  the  sacred  front  an  aureole  glow 
Woven  of  that  light  that  rose  on  Easter  morning. 
(108) 


PAOLO  TO  FRANCESCA. 

I  WAS  with  thee  in  Heaven  :  I  cannot  tell 
If  years  or  moments,  so  the  sudden  bliss, 
When  first  we  found,  then  lost,  us  in  a  kiss, 
Abolished  Time,  abolished  Earth  and  Hell, 
Left  only  Heaven.     Then  from  our  blue  there  fell 
The  dagger's  flash,  and  did  not  fall  amiss, 
For  nothing  now  can  rob  my  life  of  this,  — 
That  once  with  thee  in  Heaven,  all  else  is  well. 
Us,  undivided  when  man's  vengeance  came, 
God's  half-forgives  that  doth  not  here  divide  ; 
And,  were  this   bitter  whirl-blast   fanged   with 

flame, 

To  me  't  were  summer,  we  being  side  by  side : 
This  granted,  I  God's  mercy  will  not  blame, 
For,  given  thy  nearness,  nothing  is  denied. 
(109) 


SONNET. 
Scottish  Border. 

As  sinks  the  sun  behind  yon  alien  hills 
Whose  heather-purpled  slopes,  in  glory  rolled, 
Flush  all  my  thought  with  momentary  gold, 
What  pang  of  vague  regret  my  fancy  thrills  ? 
Here  't  is  enchanted  ground  the  peasant  tills, 
Where  the  shy  ballad  dared  its  blooms  unfold, 
And  memory's  glamour  makes  new  sights  seem 

old, 

As  when  our  life  some  vanished  dream  fulfils. 
Yet  not  to  thee  belong  these  painless  tears, 
Land  loved  ere  seen :  before  my  darkened  eyes, 
From  far  beyond  the  waters  and  the  years, 
Horizons  mute  that  wait  their  poet  rise  ; 
The  stream  before  me  fades  and  disappears, 
And  in  the  Charles  the  western  splendor  dies. 
(110) 


SONNET. 

On  being  asked  for  an  Autograph  in  Venice. 

AMID  these  fragments  of  heroic  days 

When  thought  met  deed  with  mutual  passion's 

leap, 
There  sits  a  Fame  whose  silent  trump  makes 

cheap 

What  short-lived  rumor  of  ourselves  we  raise. 
They  had  far  other  estimate  of  praise 
Who  stamped  the  signet  of  their  souls  so  deep 
In  art  and  action,  and  whose  memories  keep 
Their  height  like  stars  above  our  misty  ways : 
In  this  grave  presence  to  record  my  name 
Something    within    me    hangs    the    head    and 

shrinks. 

Dull  were  the  soul  without  some  joy  in  fame ; 
Yet  here  to  claim  remembrance  were,  methinks, 
Like  him  who,  in  the  desert's  awful  frame, 
Notches  his  cockney  initials  on  the  Sphinx. 
(HI) 


THE  DANCING  BEAR. 

FAR  over  Elf-land  poets  stretch  their  sway, 
And  win  their  dearest  crowns  beyond  the  goal 
Of  their  own  conscious  purpose  ;  they  control 
With  gossamer  threads  wide-flown  our  fancy's 

play, 

And  so  our  action.     On  my  walk  to-day, 
A  wallowing  bear  begged  clumsily  his  toll, 
When  straight  a  vision  rose  of  Atta  Troll, 
And  scenes  ideal  witched  mine  eyes  away. 
"  Merc^   Mossieu ! "  the   astonished   bear-ward 

cried, 

Grateful  for  thrice  his  hope  to  me,  the  slave 
Of  partial  memory,  seeing  at  his  side 
A  bear  immortal.      The  glad  dole  I  gave 
Was  none  of  mine  ;  poor  Heine  o'er  the  wide 
Atlantic  welter  reached  it  from  his  grave. 
(112) 


THE  MAPLE. 

THE  Maple  puts  her  corals  on  in  May, 
While  loitering  frosts  about  the  lowlands  cling, 
To  be  in  tune  with  what  the  robins  sing, 
Plastering  new  log-huts  'mid  her  branches  gray  ; 
But  when  the  Autumn  southward  turns  away, 
Then  in  her  veins  burns  most  the  blood  of  Spring, 
And  every  leaf,  intensely  blossoming, 
Makes  the  year's  sunset  pale  the  set  of  day. 
O  Youth  unprescient,  were  it  only  so 
With  trees  you  plant,  and  in  whose  shade  re 
clined, 
Thinking   their   drifting   blooms    Fate's    coldest 

snow! 

You  carve  dear  names  upon  the  faithful  rind, 
Nor  in  that  vernal  stem  the  cross  foreknow 
That  Age  shall  bear,  silent,  yet  unresigned ! 
(113) 


NIGHTWATCHES. 

WHILE  the  slow  clock,  as  they  were  miser's  gold, 
Counts  and  recounts  the  mornward  steps  of  Time, 
The  darkness  thrills  with  conscience  of  each 

crime 

By  Death  committed,  daily  grown  more  bold. 
Once  more  the  list  of  all  my  wrongs  is  told, 
And  ghostly  hands  stretch  to  me  from  my  prime 
Helpless  farewells,  as  from  an  alien  clime  ; 
For  each  new  loss  redoubles  all  the  old. 
This  morn  't  was  May ;  the  blossoms  were  astir 
With  southern  wind  ;  but  now  the  boughs  are 

bent 

With  snow  instead  of  birds,  and  all  things  freeze. 
How  much  of  all  my  past  is  dumb  with  her, 
And  of  my  future,  too,  for  with  her  went 
Half  of  that  world  I  ever  cared  to  please  ! 
(114) 


DEATH   OF   QUEEN  MERCEDES. 

HERS  all  that  Earth  could  promise  or  bestow,  — 
Youth,   Beauty,  Love,  a  crown,    the   beckoning 

years, 

Lids  never  wet,  unless  with  joyous  tears, 
A  life  remote  from  every  sordid  woe, 
And  by  a  nation's  swelled  to  lordlier  flow. 
What    lurking-place,  thought  we,  for  doubts  or 

fears, 
When,   the   day's   swan,    she    swam   along   the 

cheers 

Of  the  Alcala,  five  happy  months  ago  ? 
The  guns  were  shouting  lo  Hymen  then 
That,  on  her  birthday,  now  denounce  her  doom ; 
The  same  white  steeds  that  tossed  their  scorn  of 

men 

To-day  as  proudly  drag  her  to  the  tomb. 
Grim  jest  of  fate  !     Yet  who  dare  call  it  blind, 
Knowing  what  life  is,  what  our  humankind  ? 
(115) 


PRISON  OF  CERVANTES. 

SEAT  of  all  woes  !     Though  Nature's  firm  decree 
The  narrowing  soul  with  narrowing  dungeon  bind, 
Yet  was  his  free  of  motion  as  the  wind, 
And  held  both  worlds,  of  spirit  and  sense,  in  fee. 
In  charmed  communion  with  his  dual  mind 
He  wandered  Spain,  himself  both  knight  and  hind, 
Redressing  wrongs  he  knew  must  ever  be. 
His  humor  wise  could  see  life's  long  deceit, 
Man's  baffled  aims,  nor  therefore  both  despise  ; 
His  knightly  nature  could  ill  fortune  greet 
Like  an  old  friend.    Whose  ever  such  kind  eyes 
That  pierced  so  deep,  such  scope,  save  his  whose 

feet 

By  Avon  ceased  'neath  the  same  April's  skies  ? 
(116) 


TO  A  LADY  PLAYING  ON  THE  CITH 
ERN. 

So  dreamy-soft  the  notes,  so  far  away 

They  seem  to  fall,  the  horns  of  Oberon 

Blow  their  faint  Hunt's-up  from  the  good-time 

gone  ; 

Or,  on  a  morning  of  long-withered  May, 
Larks  tinkle  unseen  o'er  Claudian  arches  gray, 
That  Homeward   crawl  from   Dreamland ;    and 

anon 

My  fancy  flings  her  cloak  of  Darkness  on, 
To  vanish  from  the  dungeon  of  To-day. 
In  happier  times  and  scenes  I  seem  to  be, 
And,  as  her  fingers  flutter  o'er  the  strings, 
The  days  return  when  I  was  young  as  she, 
And  my  fledged  thoughts  began  to  feel  their 

wings 

With  all  Heaven's  blue  before  them :  Memory 
Or  Music  is  it  such  enchantment  sings  ? 
(117) 


THE  EYE'S  TREASURY. 

GOLD  of  the  reddening  sunset,  backward  thrown 
In  largess  on  my  tall  paternal  trees, 
Thou  with  false  hope  or  fear  didst  never  tease 
His  heart  that  hoards  thee  ;  nor  is  childhood  flown 
From  him  whose  life  no  fairer  boon  hath  known 
Than  that  what  pleased  him  earliest  still  should 

please. 

And  who  hath  incomes  safe  from  chance  as  these, 
Gone  in  a  moment,  yet  for  life  his  own  ? 
All  other  gold  is  slave  of  earthward  laws ; 
This  to  the  deeps  of  ether  takes  its  flight, 
And  on  the  topmost  leaves  makes  glorious  pause 
Of  parting  pathos  ere  it  yield  to  night : 
So  linger,  as  from  me  earth's  light  withdraws, 
Dear  touch  of  Nature,  tremulously  bright ! 
(118) 


PESSIMOPTIMISM. 

YE  little  think  what  toil  it  was  to  build 
A  world  of  men  imperfect  even  as  this, 
Where  we  conceive  of  Good  by  what  we  miss, 
Of  IU  by  that  wherewith  best  days  are  filled  ; 
A  world  whose  every  atom  is  self-willed, 
"Whose  corner-stone  is  propt  on  artifice, 
Whose  joy  is  shorter-lived  than  woman's  kiss, 
Whose  wisdom  hoarded  is  but  to  be  spilled. 
Yet  this  is  better  than  a  life  of  caves, 
Whose  highest  art  was  scratching  on  a  bone, 
Or  chipping  toilsome  arrowheads  of  flint ; 
Better,  though  doomed  to  hear  while  Cleon  raves, 
To  see  wit's  want  eterned  in  paint  or  stone, 
And  wade  the  drain-drenched  shoals  of    daily 
printo 

(119) 


THE   BRAKES. 

WHAT  countless  years  and  wealth  of  brain  were 

spent 

To  bring  us  hither  from  our  caves  and  huts, 
And  trace  through  pathless  wilds  the  deep-worn 

ruts 

Of  faith  and  habit,  by  whose  deep  indent 
Prudence  may  guide  if  genius  be  not  lent,  — 
Genius,  not  always  happy  when  it  shuts 
Its  ears  against  the  plodder's  ifs  and  buts, 
Hoping  in  one  rash  leap  to  snatch  the  event. 
The  coursers  of  the  sun,  whose  hoofs  of  flame 
Consume  morn's  misty  threshold,  are  exact 
As  bankers'  clerks,  and  all  this  star-poised  frame, 
One  swerve  allowed,  were  with  convulsion  rackt ; 
This  world  were  doomed,  should  Dulness  fail,  to 

tame 

Wit's  feathered  heels  in  the  stern  stocks  of  fact. 
(1*3) 


A  FOREBODING. 

WHAT  were  the  whole  void  world,  if  thou  wert 

dead, 

Whose  briefest  absence  can  eclipse  my  day, 
And  make  the  hours  that  danced  with  Time  away 
Drag  their  funereal  steps  with  muffled  head  ? 
Through  thee,  meseems,  the  very  rose  is  red, 
From  thee  the  violet  steals  its  breath  in  May, 
From  thee  draw  life  all  things  that  grow  not  gray, 
And  by  thy  force  the  happy  stars  are  sped. 
Thou  near,  the  hope  of  thee  to  overflow 
Fills  all  my  earth  and  heaven,  as  when  in  Spring, 
Ere  April  come,  the  birds  and  blossoms  know, 
And  grasses  brighten  round  her  feet  to  cling ; 
Nay,  and  this  hope  delights  all  nature  so 
That  the  dumb  turf  I  tread  on  seems  to  sing. 
(121) 


III. 

FANCY. 


UNDER  THE   OCTOBER  MAPLES. 

WHAT  mean  these  banners  spread, 

These  paths  with  royal  red 

So  gaily  carpeted  ? 

Comes  there  a  prince  to-day  ? 

Such  footing  were  too  fine 

For  feet  less  argentine 

Than  Dian's  own  or  thine, 

Queen  whom  my  tides  obey. 

Surely  for  thee  are  meant 
These  hues  so  orient 
That  with  a  sultan's  tent 
Each  tree  invites  the  sun  ; 
Our  Earth  such  homage  pays, 
So  decks  her  dusty  ways, 
And  keeps  such  holidays, 
For  one,  and  only  one. 

My  brain  shapes  form  and  face, 
Throbs  with  the  rhythmic  grace 
And  cadence  of  her  pace 
To  all  fine  instincts  true  ; 
(125) 


126    UNDER  THE  OCTOBER  MAPLES. 

Her  footsteps,  as  they  pass, 
Than  moonbeams  over  grass 
Fall  lighter,  —  and,  alas, 
More  insubstantial  too ! 


LOVE'S    CLOCK. 

A  PASTORAL. 

DAPHNIS  waiting. 

"  O  DRYAD  feet, 

Be  doubly  fleet, 

Timed  to  my  heart's  expectant  beat 

While  I  await  her  ! 
'  At  four,'  vowed  she  ; 

'T  is  scarcely  three, 

Yet  by  my  time  it  seems  to  be 

A  good  hour  later !  " 

CHLOE. 

"  Bid  me  not  stay ! 
Hear  reason,  pray ! 
'T  is  striking  six !     Sure  never  day 
Was  short  as  this  is !  " 

DAPHNIS. 

"  Reason  nor  rhyme 
Is  in  the  chime ! 

It  can't  be  five ;  I  've  scarce  had  time 
To  beg  two  kisses  !  " 

(127) 


128  LOVE'S  CLOCK. 


BOTH. 

"  Early  or  late, 
When  lovers  wait, 

And  Love's  watch  gains,  if  Time  a  gait 
So  snail-like  chooses, 
Why  should  his  feet 
Become  more  fleet 

Than  cowards'  are,  when  lovers  meet 
And  Love's  watch  loses  ?  " 


ELEANOR  MAKES   MACAROONS. 

LIGHT  of  triumph  in  her  eyes, 
Eleanor  her  apron  ties  ; 
As  she  pushes  back  her  sleeves, 
High  resolve  her  bosom  heaves. 
Hasten,  cook !  impel  the  fire 
To  the  pace  of  her  desire ; 
As  you  hope  to  save  your  soul, 
Bring  a  virgin  casserole, 
Brightest  bring  of  silver  spoons,  — 
Eleanor  makes  macaroons  ! 

Almond-blossoms,  now  adance 
In  the  smile  of  Southern  France, 
Leave  your  sport  with  sun  and  breeze, 
Think  of  duty,  not  of  ease  ; 
Fashion,  'neath  their  jerkins  brown, 
Kernels  white  as  thistle-down, 
Tiny  cheeses  made  with  cream 
From  the  Galaxy's  mid-stream, 
Blanched  in  light  of  honeymoons,  — 
Eleanor  makes  macaroons ! 

Now  for  sugar,  —  nay,  our  plan 
Tolerates  no  work  of  man. 

(129) 


130          ELEANOR  MAKES  MACAROONS. 

Hurry,  then,  ye  golden  bees ; 
Fetch  your  clearest  honey,  please, 
Garnered  on  a  Yorkshire  moor, 
While  the  last  larks  sing  and  soar, 
From  the  heather-blossoms  sweet 
Where  sea-breeze  and  sunshine  meet, 
And  the  Augusts  mask  as  Junes,  — 
Eleanor  makes  macaroons ! 

Next  the  pestle  and  mortar  find, 
Pure  rock-crystal,  —  these  to  grind 
Into  paste  more  smooth  than  silk, 
Whiter  than  the  milkweed's  milk  : 
Spread  it  on  a  rose-leaf,  thus, 
Gate  to  please  Theocritus  ; 
Then  the  fire  with  spices  swell, 
While,  for  her  completer  spell, 
Mystic  canticles  she  croons,  — 
Eleanor  makes  macaroons ! 

Perfect !  and  all  this  to  waste 
On  a  graybeard's  palsied  taste ! 
Poets  so  their  verses  write, 
Heap  them  full  of  life  and  light, 
And  then  fling  them  to  the  rude 
Mumbling  of  the  multitude. 
Not  so  dire  her  fate  as  theirs, 
Since  her  friend  this  gift  declares 
Choicest  of  his  birthday  boons,  — 
Eleanor's  dear  macaroons ! 
February  22,  1884. 


TELEPATHY. 

'  AND  how  could  you  dream  of  meeting  ?  " 

Nay,  how  can  you  ask  me,  sweet  ? 
All  day  my  pulse  had  been  beating 
The  tune  of  your  coming  feet. 

And  as  nearer  and  ever  nearer 
I  felt  the  throb  of  your  tread. 

To  be  in  the  world  grew  dearer, 
And  my  blood  ran  rosier  red. 

Love  called,  and  I  could  not  linger, 
But  sought  the  forbidden  tryst, 

As  music  follows  the  finger 
Of  the  dreaming  lutanist. 

And  though  you  had  said  it  and  said  it, 
"  We  must  not  be  happy  to-day," 

Was  I  not  wiser  to  credit 

The  fire  in  my  feet  than  your  Nay  ? 
(131) 


SCHERZO. 

WHEN  the  down  is  on  the  chin 
And  the  gold-gleam  in  the  hair, 
When  the  birds  their  sweethearts  win 
And  champagne  is  in  the  air, 
Love  is  here,  and  Love  is  there, 
Love  is  welcome  everywhere. 

Summer's  cheek  too  soon  turns  thin, 
Days  grow  briefer,  sunshine  rare ; 
Autumn  from  his  cannekin 
Blows  the  froth  to  chase  Despair : 
Love  is  met  with  frosty  stare, 
Cannot  house  'neath  branches  bare. 

When  new  red  is  in  the  rose 

And  new  life  is  in  the  leaf, 

Though  Love's  Maytime  be  as  brief 

As  a  dragon-fly's  repose, 

Never  moments  come  like  those, 

Be  they  Heaven  or  Hell :  who  knows  ? 

All  too  soon  comes  Winter's  grief, 
Spendthrift  Love's  false  friends  turn  foes ; 
(132) 


SCHERZO.  133 


Softly  comes  Old  Age,  the  thief, 
Steals  the  rapture,  leaves  the  throes : 
Love  his  mantle  round  him  throws,  — 
"  Time  to  say  Good-bye  ;  it  snows." 


"FRANCISCUS    DE   VERULAMIO    SIC 
COGITAVIT." 

THAT  's  a  rather  bold  speech,  my  Lord  Bacon, 

For,  indeed,  is  't  so  easy  to  know 
Just  how  much  we  from  others  have  taken, 

And  how  much  our  own  natural  flow  ? 

Since  your  mind  bubbled  up  at  its  fountain, 

How  many  streams  made  it  elate, 
While  it  calmed  to  the  plain  from  the  mountain, 

As  every  mind  must  that  grows  great  ? 

While  you  thought  't  was  You  thinking  as  newly 
As  Adam  still  wet  with  God's  dew, 

You  forgot  in  your  self-pride  that  truly 
The  whole  Past  was  thinking  through  you. 

Greece,  Rome,  nay,  your  namesake,  old  Roger, 
With  Truth's  nameless  delvers  who  wrought 

In  the  dark  mines  of  Truth,  helped  to  prod  your 
Fine  brain  with  the  goad  of  their  thought. 

As  mummy  was  prized  for  a  rich  hue 
The  painter  no  elsewhere  could  find, 

So  't  was  buried  men's  thinking  with  which  you 
Gave  the  ripe  mellow  tone  to  your  mind. 
(134) 


"FRANCISCUS  DE    VERULAM10."        135 

I  heard  the  proud  strawberry  saying, 
"  Only  look  what  a  ruby  I  Ve  made  !  " 

It  forgot  how  the  bees  in  their  maying 
Had  brought  it  the  stuff  for  its  trade. 

And  yet  there  's  the  half  of  a  truth  in  it, 
And  my  Lord  might  his  copyright  sue  ; 

For  a  thought 's  his  who  kindles  new  youth  in  it, 
Or  so  puts  it  as  makes  it  more  true. 

The  birds  but  repeat  without  ending 

The  same  old  traditional  notes, 
Which  some,  by  more  happily  blending, 

Seem  to  make  over  new  in  their  throats  ; 

And  we  men  through  our  old  bit  of  song  run, 
Until  one  just  improves  on  the  rest, 

And  we  call  a  thing  his,  in  the  long  run, 
Who  utters  it  clearest  and  best. 


AUSPEX. 

MY  heart,  I  cannot  still  it, 
Nest  that  had  song-birds  in  it ; 
And  when  the  last  shall  go, 
The  dreary  days,  to  fill  it, 
Instead  of  lark  or  linnet, 
Shall  whirl  dead  leaves  and  snow. 

Had  they  been  swallows  only, 
Without  the  passion  stronger 
That  skyward  longs  and  sings,  — 
Woe  's  me,  I  shall  be  lonely 
When  I  can  feel  no  longer 
The  impatience  of  their  wings ! 

A  moment,  sweet  delusion, 
Like  birds  the  brown  leaves  hover ; 
But  it  will  not  be  long 
Before  their  wild  confusion 
Fall  wavering  down  to  cover 
The  poet  and  his  song. 
(136) 


THE   PREGNANT  COMMENT. 

OPENING  one  day  a  book  of  mine, 
I  absent,  Hester  found  a  line 
Praised  with  a  pencil-mark,  and  tliis 
She  left  transfigured  with  a  kiss. 

When  next  upon  the  page  I  chance, 
Like  Poussin's  nymphs  my  pulses  dance, 
And  whirl  my  fancy  where  it  sees 
Pan  piping  'neath  Arcadian  trees, 
Whose  leaves  no  winter-scenes  rehearse, 
Still  young  and  glad  as  Homer's  verse. 
"  What  mean,"  I  ask,  "  these  sudden  joys  ? 
This  feeling  fresher  than  a  boy's  ? 
What  makes  this  line,  familiar  long, 
New  as  the  first  bird's  April  song  ? 
I  could,  with  sense  illumined  thus, 
Clear  doubtful  texts  in  JEschylus  !  " 

Laughing,  one  day  she  gave  the  key, 
My  riddle's  open-sesame  ; 
Then  added,  with  a  smile  demure, 
Whose  downcast  lids  veiled  triumph  sure, 
"  If  what  I  left  there  give  you  pain, 
You  —  you  —  can  take  it  off  again  ; 
(137) 


138  THE  PREGNANT  COMMENT. 

'T  was  for  my  poet,  not  for  Mm, 
Your  Doctor  Donne  there  !  " 

Earth  grew  dim 
And  wavered  in  a  golden  mist, 
As  rose,  not  paper,  leaves  I  kissed. 
Donne,  you  forgive  ?     I  let  you  keep 
Her  preciqus  comment,  poet  deep. 


THE   LESSON. 

I  SAT  and  watched  the  walls  of  night 
With  cracks  of  sudden  lightning  glow, 
And  listened  while  with  clumsy  might 
The  thunder  wallowed  to  and  fro. 

The  rain  fell  softly  now  ;  the  squall, 
That  to  a  torrent  drove  the  trees, 
Had  whirled  beyond  us  to  let  fall 
Its  tumult  on  the  whitening  seas. 

But  still  the  lightning  crinkled  keen, 
Or  fluttered  fitful  from  behind 
The  leaden  drifts,  then  only  seen, 
That  rumbled  eastward  on  the  wind. 

Still  as  gloom  followed  after  glare, 
While  bated  breath  the  pine-trees  drew, 
Tiny  Salmoneus  of  the  air, 
His  mimic  bolts  the  firefly  threw. 

He  thought,  no  doubt,  "  Those  flashes  grand, 
That  light  for  leagues  the  shuddering  sky, 
Are  made,  a  fool  could  understand, 
By  some  superior  kind  of  fly. 
(139) 


140  THE  LESSON. 

"  He  's  of  our  race's  elder  branch 
His  family-arms  the  same  as  ours, 
Both  born  the  twy-forked  flaine  to  launch, 
Of  kindred,  if  unequal,  powers." 

And  is  man  wiser  ?     Man  who  takes 
His  consciousness  the  law  to  be 
Of  all  beyond  his  ken,  and  makes 
God  but  a  bigger  kind  of  Me  ? 


SCIENCE   AND   POETRY. 

HE  who  first  stretched  his  nerves  of  subtile  wire 
Over  the  land  and  through  the  sea-depths  still, 
Thought  only  of  the  flame-winged  messenger 
As  a  dull  drudge  that  should  encircle  earth 
With  sordid  messages  of  Trade,  and  tame 
Blithe  Ariel  to  a  bagman.     But  the  Muse 
Not  long  will  be  defrauded.     From  her  foe 
Her  misused  wand  she  snatches  ;  at  a  touch, 
The  Age  of  Wonder  is  renewed  again, 
And  to  our  disenchanted  day  restores 
The  Shoes  of  Swiftness  that  give  odds  to  Thought, 
The  Cloak  that  makes  invisible  ;  and  with  these 
I  glide,  an  airy  fire,  from  shore  to  shore, 
Or  from  my  Cambridge  whisper  to  Cathay. 
(141) 


A  NEW   YEAR'S   GREETING. 

THE  century  numbers  fourscore  years ; 
You,  fortressed  in  your  teens, 
To  Time's  alarums  close  your  ears, 
And,  while  he  devastates  your  peers, 
Conceive  not  what  he  means. 

If  e'er  life's  winter  fleck  with  snow 
Your  hair's  deep  shadowed  bo \vers, 
That  winsome  head  an  art  would  know 
To  make  it  charm,  and  wear  it  so 
As  't  were  a  wreath  of  flowers. 

If  to  such  fairies  years  must  come, 
May  yours  fall  soft  and  slow 
As,  shaken  by  a  bee's  low  hum, 
The  rose-leaves  waver,  sweetly  dumb, 
Down  to  their  mates  below  ! 
(142) 


THE  DISCOVERY. 

I  WATCHED  a  moorland  torrent  run 
Down  through  the  rift  itself  had  made, 
Golden  as  honey  in  the  sun, 
Of  darkest  amber  in  the  shade. 

In  this  wild  glen  at  last,  methought, 
The  magic's  secret  I  surprise ; 
Here  Celia's  guardian  fairy  caught 
The  changeful  splendors  of  her  eyes. 

All  else  grows  tame,  the  sky's  one  blue, 
The  one  long  languish  of  the  rose, 
But  these,  beyond  prevision  new, 
Shall  charm  and  startle  to  the  close. 
(143) 


WITH   A   SEASHELL. 

SHELL,  whose  lips,  than  mine  more  cold, 
Might  with  Dion's  ear  make  bold, 
Seek  my  Lady's ;   if  thou  win 
To  that  portal,  shut  from  sin, 
Where  commissioned  angels'  swords 
Startle  back  unholy  words, 
Thou  a  miracle  shalt  see 
Wrought  by  it  and  wrought  in  thee  ; 
Thou,  the  dumb  one,  shalt  recover 
Speech  of  poet,  speech  of  lover. 
If  she  deign  to  lift  you  there, 
Murmur  what  I  may  not  dare ; 
In  that  archway,  pearly-pink 
As  the  Dawn's  untrodden  brink, 
Murmur,  "  Excellent  and  good, 
Beauty's  best  in  every  mood, 
Never  common,  never  tame, 
Changeful  fair  as  windwaved  flame  "  — 
Nay,  I  maunder;  this  she  hears 
Every  day  with  mocking  ears, 
With  a  brow  not  sudden-stained 
With  the  flush  of  bliss  restrained, 
With  no  tremor  of  the  pulse 
More  than  feels  the  dreaming  dulse 
(144) 


WITH  A  SE  ASH  ELL.  145 

In  the  midmost  ocean's  caves, 
When  a  tempest  heaps  the  waves. 
Thou  must  woo  her  in  a  phrase 
Mystic  as  the  opal's  blaze, 
Which  pure  maids  alone  can  see 
When  their  lovers  constant  be. 
I  with  thee  a  secret  share, 
Half  a  hope,  and  half  a  prayer, 
Though  no  reach  of  mortal  skill 
Ever  told  it  all,  or  will ; 
Say,  "  He  bids  me  —  nothing  more  — 
Tell  you  what  you  guessed  before  !  " 


THE    SECRET. 

I  HAVE  a  fancy :  how  shall  I  bring  it 
Home  to  all  mortals  wherever  they  be  ? 
Say  it  or  sing  it  ?     Shoe  it  or  wing  it, 
So  it  may  outrun  or  outfly  ME, 
Merest  cocoon-web  whence  it  broke  free  ? 

Only  one  secret  can  save  from  disaster, 

Only  one  magic  is  that  of  the  Master : 

Set  it  to  music  ;  give  it  a  tune,  — 

Tune  the  brook  sings  you,  tune  the  breeze  brings 

you, 
Tune  the  wild  columbines  nod  to  in  June  ! 

This  is  the  secret :  so  simple,  you  see ! 
Easy  as  loving,  easy  as  kissing, 
Easy  as  — well,  let  me  ponder  —  as  missing, 
Known,  since  the  world   was,  by  scarce  two  or 
three. 

(146) 


IV. 
HUMOR  AND  SATIRE. 


FITZ   ADAM'S   STORY. 

[The  greater  part  of  this  poem  was  written  many  years 
ago  as  part  of  a  larger  one,  to  be  called  "  The  Nooning," 
made  up  of  tales  in  verse,  some  of  them  grave,  some 
comic.  It  gives  me  a  sad  pleasure  to  remember  that  I 
was  encouraged  in  this  project  by  my  friend  the  late 
Arthur  Hugh  Clough.] 

THE  next  whose  fortune  't  was  a  tale  to  tell 
Was  one  whom  men,  before  they  thought,  loved 

well, 

And  after  thinking  wondered  why  they  did, 
For  half  he  seemed  to  let  them,  half  forbid, 
And  wrapped  him  so  in  humors,  sheath  on  sheath, 
'T  was  hard  to  guess  the  mellow  soul  beneath ; 
But,  once  divined,  you  took  him  to  your  heart, 
While  he  appeared  to  bear  with  you  as  part 
Of  life's  impertinence,  and  once  a  year 
Betrayed  his  true  self  by  a  smile  or  tear, 
Or  rather  something  sweetly-shy  and  loath, 
Withdrawn  ere  fully  shown,  and  mixed  of  both. 
A  cynic  ?     Not  precisely  :  one  who  thrust 
Against  a  heart  too  prone  to  love  and  trust, 
Who  so  despised  false  sentiment  he  knew 
Scarce  in  himself  to  part  the  false  and  true, 
And  strove  to  hide,  by  roughening-o'er  the  skin, 
(149) 


150  F1TZ  ADAM'S  STORY. 

Those  cobweb  nerves  he  could  not  dull  within. 

Gentle  by  birth,  but  of  a  stem  decayed, 

He  shunned  life's  rivalries  and  hated  trade ; 

On  a  small  patrimony  and  larger  pride, 

He  lived  uneasef ul  on  the  Other  Side 

(So  he  called  Europe) ,  only  coming  West 

To  give  his  Old-World  appetite  new  zest ; 

Yet  still  the  New  World  spooked  it  in  his  veins, 

A  ghost  he  could  not  lay  with  all  his  pains ; 

For  never  Pilgrims'  offshoot  scapes  control 

Of  those  old  instincts  that  have  shaped  his  soul. 

A  radical  in  thought,  he  puffed  away 

With  shrewd  contempt  the  dust  of  usage  gray, 

Yet  loathed  democracy  as  one  who  saw, 

In  what  he  longed  to  love,  some  vulgar  flaw, 

And,  shocked  through  all  his  delicate  reserves, 

Remained  a  Tory  by  his  taste  and  nerves. 

His  fancy's  thrall,  he  drew  all  ergoes  thence, 

And  thought  himself  the  type  of  common  sense ; 

Misliking  women,  not  from  cross  or  whim, 

But  that  his  mother  shared  too  much  in  him, 

And  he  half  felt  that  what  in  them  was  grace 

Made  the  unlucky  weakness  of  his  race. 

What  powers  he  had  he  hardly  cared  to  know, 

But  sauntered  through  the  world  as  through  a 

show  ; 

A  critic  fine  in  his  haphazard  way, 
A  sort  of  mild  La  Bruyere  on  half-pay. 
For  comic  weaknesses  he  had  an  eye 
Keen  as  an  acid  for  an  alkali, 


FITZ  ADAM'S  STORY.  151 

Yet  you  could  feel,  through  his  sardonic  tone, 
He  loved  them  all,  unless  they  were  his  own. 
You  might  have  called  him,  with  his  humorous 

twist, 

A  kind  of  human  entomologist : 
As  these  bring  home,  from  every  walk  they  take, 
Their    hat-crowns    stuck   with   bugs   of    curious 

make, 

So  he  filled  all  the  lining  of  his  head 
With  characters  impaled  and  ticketed, 
And  had  a  cabinet  behind  his  eyes 
For  all  they  caught  of  mortal  oddities. 
He  might  have  been  a  poet  —  many  worse  — 
But  that  he  had,  or  feigned,  contempt  of  verse  ; 
Called  it  tattooing  language,  and  held  rhymes 
The  young  world's  lullaby  of  ruder  times. 
Bitter  in  words,  too  indolent  for  gall, 
He  satirized  himself  the  first  of  all, 
In  men  and  their  affairs  could  find  no  law, 
And  was  the  ill  logic  that  he  thought  he  saw. 

Scratching  a  match  to  light  his  pipe  anew, 
With  eyes  half  shut  some  musing  whiffs  he  drew, 
And  thus  began  :  "  I  give  you  all  my  word, 
I  think  this  mock-Decameron  absurd  ; 
Boccaccio's  garden  !  how  bring  that  to  pass 
In  our  bleak  clime  save  under  double  glass  ? 
The  moral  east-wind  of  New  England  life 
Would  snip  its  gay  luxuriance  like  a  knife ; 
Mile-deep  the  glaciers  brooded  here,  they  say, 


152  F1TZ  ADAM'S  STORY. 

Through  aeons  numb ;  we  feel  their  chill  to-day. 
These  foreign  plants  are  but  half-hardy  still, 
Die  on  a  south,  and  on  a  north  wall  chill. 
Had  we  stayed  Puritans !      They  had  some  heat, 
(Though  whence  derived  I  have  my  own  con 
ceit,) 

But  you  have  long  ago  raked  up  their  fires ; 
Where  they  had  faith,  you  've  ten  sham-Gothic 

spires. 

Why  more  exotics  ?     Try  your  native  vines, 
And   in   some   thousand   years   you    may   have 

wines ; 
Your  present  grapes  are  harsh,   all   pulps  and 

skins, 

And  want  traditions  of  ancestral  bins 
That  saved  for  evenings  round  the  polished  board 
Old  lava-fires,  the  sun-steeped  hillside's  hoard. 
Without  a  Past,  you  lack  that  southern  wall 
O'er  which  the  vines  of  Poesy  should  crawl ; 
Still  they  're  your  only  hope  ;  no  midnight  oil 
Makes  up  for  virtue  wanting  in  the  soil ; 
Manure  them  well  and  prune  them ;  't  won't  be 

France, 

Nor  Spain,  nor  Italy,  but  there  's  your  chance. 
You  have  one  story-teller  worth  a  score 
Of  dead  Boccaccios,  —  nay,  add  twenty  more,  — 
A  hawthorn  asking  spring's  most  dainty  breath, 
And  him  you  're  freezing  pretty  well  to  death. 
However,  since  you  say  so,  I  will  tease 
My  memory  to  a  story  by  degrees, 


F1TZ  ADAM'S  STORY.  153 

Though  you  will  cry,  '  Enough ! '  I  'm  wellnigh 

sure, 

Ere  I  have  dreamed  through  half  ray  overture. 
Stories  were  good  for  men  who  had  no  books, 
(Fortunate  race  ! )  and  built  their  nests  like  rooks 
In  lonely  towers,  to  which  the  Jongleur  brought 
His  pedler's-box  of  cheap  and  tawdry  thought, 
"With  here  and  there  a  fancy  fit  to  see 
Wrought  to  quaint  grace  in  golden  filigree,  — 
Some  ring  that  with  the  Muse's  finger  yet 
Is  warm,  like  Aucassin  and  Nicolete ; 
The  morning  newspaper  has  spoilt  his  trade, 
(For  better  or  for  worse,  I  leave  unsaid,) 
And  stories  now,  to  suit  a  public  nice, 
Must  be  half  epigram,  half  pleasant  vice. 

"  All  tourists  know  Shebagog  County  :  there 
The  summer  idlers  take  their  yearly  stare, 
Dress  to  see  Nature  in  a  well-bred  way, 
As  't  were  Italian  opera,  or  play, 
Encore  the  sunrise  (if  they're  out  of  bed), 
And  pat  the  Mighty  Mother  on  the  head  : 
These  have  I  seen,  —  all  things  are  good  to  see,  — 
And  wondered  much  at  their  complacency. 
This  world's  great  show,  that  took  in  getting-up 
Millions  of  years,  they  finish  ere  they  sup  ; 
Sights  that  God  gleams   through  with  soul-tin 
gling  force 

They  glance  approvingly  as  things  of  course, 
Say,  «  That 's  a  grand  rock,'  '  This  a  pretty  fall,' 


154  FITZ  ADAAf'S  STORY. 

Not  thinking,  '  Are  we  worthy  ?  '     What  if  all 
The  scornful  landscape  should  turn  round  and 

say, 

*  This  is  a  fool,  and  that  a  popinjay  '  ? 
I  often  wonder  what  the  Mountain  thinks 
Of   French   boots   creaking   o'er   his   breathless 

brinks, 

Or  how  the  Sun  would  scare  the  chattering  crowd, 
If  some  fine  day  he  chanced  to  think  aloud. 
I,  who  love  Nature  much  as  sinners  can, 
Love  her  where  she  most  grandeur  shows,  —  in 

man : 

Here  find  I  mountain,  forest,  cloud,  and  sun, 
River  and  sea,  and  glows  when  day  is  done ; 
Nay,  where  she  makes  grotesques,  and  moulds  in 

jest 

The  clown's  cheap  clay,  I  find  unfading  zest. 
The  natural  instincts  year  by  year  retire, 
As  deer  shrink  northward  from  the  settler's  fire, 
And  he  who  loves  the  wild  game-flavor  more 
Than  city-feasts,  where  every  man  's  a  bore 
To  every  other  man,  must  seek  it  where 
The  steamer's  throb  and  railway's  iron  blare 
Have  not  yet  startled  with  their  punctual  stir 
The  shy,  wood-wandering  brood  of  Character. 

"  There  is  a  village,  once  the  county  town, 
Through  which  the  weekly  mail  rolled  dustily 

down, 
Where  the  courts  sat,  it  may  be,  twice  a  year, 


FITZ  ADAM'S  STORY.  155 

And  the  one  tavern  reeked  with  rustic  cheer ; 
Cheeshogquesumscot  erst,  now  Jethro  hight, 
Red-man  and  pale-face  bore  it  equal  spite. 
The  railway  ruined  it,  the  natives  say, 
That  passed  unwisely  fifteen  miles  away, 
And  made  a  drain  to  which,  with  steady  ooze, 
Filtered  away  law,  stage-coach,  trade,  and  news. 
The  railway  saved  it ;  so  at  least  think  those 
"Who  love  old  ways,  old  houses,  old  repose. 
Of  course  the  Tavern  stayed :  its  genial  host 
Thought  not  of  flitting  more  than  did  the  post 
On  which  high-hung  the  fading  signboard  creaks, 
Inscribed,  '  The  Eagle  Inn,  by  Ezra  Weeks.' 

"  If  in  life's  journey  you  should  ever  find 
An  inn  medicinal  for  body  and  mind, 
'T  is  sure  to  be  some  drowsy-looking  house 
Whose  easy  landlord  has  a  bustling  spouse : 
He,  if  he  like  you,  will  not  long  forego 
Some  bottle  deep  in  cobwebbed  dust  laid  low, 
That,  since  the  War  we  used  to  call  the  '  Last,' 
Has  dozed  and  held  its  lang-syne  memories  fast ; 
From  him  exhales  that  Indian-summer  air 
Of  hazy,  lazy  welcome  everywhere, 
While  with  her  toil  the  napery  is  white, 
The  china  dustless,  the  keen  knife-blades  bright, 
Salt  dry  as  sand,  and  bread  that  seems  as  though 
'T  were  rather  sea-foam  baked  than  vulgar  dough. 

"  In  our  swift  country,  houses  trim  and  white 
Are  pitched  like  tents,  the  lodging  of  a  night ; 


156  FITZ  ADAPTS  STORY. 

Each  on  its  bank  of  baked  turf  mounted  high 
Perches  impatient  o'er  the  roadside  dry, 
While  the  wronged  landscape  coldly  stands  aloof, 
Refusing  friendship  with  the  upstart  roof. 
Not  so  the  Eagle ;  on  a  grass-green  swell 
That  toward  the  south  with  sweet  concessions  fell 
It  dwelt  retired,  and  half  had  grown  to  be 
As  aboriginal  r.s  rock  or  tree. 
It  nestled  close  to  earth,  and  seemed  to  brood 
O'er  homely  thoughts  in  a  half-conscious  mood, 
As  by  the  peat  that  rather  fades  than  burns 
The   smouldering  grandam   nods  and    knits   by 

turns, 

Happy,  although  her  newest  news  were  old 
Ere  the  first  hostile  drum  at  Concord  rolled. 
If  paint  it  e'er  had  known,  it  knew  no  more 
Than  yellow  lichens  spattered  thickly  o'er 
That  soft  lead-gray,  less  dark  beneath  the  eaves 
Which  the  slow  brush  of  wind  and  weather  leaves. 
The  ample  roof  sloped  backward  to  the  ground, 
And  vassal  lean-tos  gathered  thickly  round, 
Patched  on,  as  sire  or  son  had  felt  the  need, 
Like    chance    growths    sprouting    from    the    old 

roof's  seed, 

Just  as  about  a  yellow-pine-tree  spring 
Its  rough-barked  darlings  in  a  filial  ring. 
But  the  great  chimney  was  the  central  thought 
Whose  gravitation  through  the  cluster  wrought ; 
For  't  is  not  styles  far-fetched  from  Greece  or 

Rome, 


FITZ  ADAM'S  STORY.  157 

But  just  the  Fireside,  that  can  make  a  home  ; 
None  of  your  spindling  things  of  modern  style, 
Like  pins  stuck  through  to  stay  the  card-built  pile, 
It  rose  broad-shouldered,  kindly,  debonair, 
Its  warm  breath  whitening  in  the  October  air, 
While  on  its  front  a  heart  in  outline  showed 
The  place  it  filled  in  that  serene  abode. 

"  When  first  I  chanced  the  Eagle  to  explore, 
Ezra  sat  listless  by  the  open  door  ; 
One  chair  careened  him  at  an  angle  meet, 
Another  nursed  his  hugely-slippered  feet ; 
Upon  a  third  reposed  a  shirt-sleeved  arm, 
And  the  whole  man  diffused  tobacco's  charm. 
'  Are  you  the  landlord  ?  '     *  Wahl,  I  guess  I  be,' 
Watching  the  smoke,  he  answered  leisurely. 
He  was  a  stoutish  man,  and  through  the  breast 
Of  his  loose  shirt  there  showed  a  brambly  chest ; 
Streaked  redly  as  a  wind-foreboding  morn, 
His  tanned  cheeks  curved  to  temples  closely  shorn  ; 
Clean-shaved  he  wras,  save  where  a  hedge  of  gray 
Upon  his  brawny  throat  leaned  every  way 
About  an  Adam's-apple,  that  beneath 
Bulged  like  a  boulder  from  a  brambly  heath. 
The  Western  World's  true  child  and  nursling  he, 
Equipt  with  aptitudes  enough  for  three  : 
No  eye  like  his  to  value  horse  or  cow, 
Or  gauge  the  contents  of  a  stack  or  mow ; 
He  could  foretell  the  weather  at  a  word, 
He  knew  the  haunt  of  every  beast  and  bird, 


158  FITZ  ADAWS  STORY. 

Or  where  a  two-pound  trout  was  sure  to  lie, 
Waiting  the  flutter  of  his  home-made  fly  ; 
Nay,  once  in  autumns  five,  he  had  the  luck 
To  drop  at  fair-play  range  a  ten-tiiied  buck  ; 
Of  sportsmen  true  he  favored  every  whim, 
But  never  cockney  found  a  guide  in  him  ; 
A  natural  man,  with  all  his  instincts  fresh, 
Not  buzzing  helpless  in  Reflection's  mesh, 
Firm  on  its  feet  stood  his  broad-shouldered  mind, 
As  bluffly  honest  as  a  northwest  wind  ; 
Hard-headed  and  soft-hearted,  you  'd  scarce  meet 
A  kindlier  mixture  of  the  shrewd  and  sweet ; 
Generous  by  birth,  and  ill  at  saying  '  No,' 
Yet  in  a  bargain  he  was  all  men's  foe, 
Would  yield  no  inch  of  vantage  in  a  trade, 
And  give  away  ere  nightfall  all  he  made. 

"  '  Can  I  have  lodging  here  ?  '  once  more  I  said. 
He  blew  a  whiff,  and,  leaning  back  his  head, 
4  You  come    a   piece  through  Bailey's  woods,  I 

s'posc, 

Acrost  a  bridge  where  a  big  swamp-oak  grows  ? 
It  don't  grow,  neither ;  it  's  ben  dead  ten  year, 
Nor  th*  ain't  a  livin'  creetur,  fur  nor  near, 
Can  tell  wut  killed  it ;  but  I  some  misdoubt 
'T  was  borers,  there  's  sech  heaps  on  'em  about. 
You  did  n'  chance  to  run  ag'inst  my  son, 
A  long,  slab-sided  youngster  with  a  gun  ? 
He  'd  oughto  ben  back  more  'n  an  hour  ago, 
An'  brought  some  birds  to  dress  for  supper  — 

sho! 


FITZ  ADAM'S  STORY.  159 

There  he  comes  now.     'Say,  Obed,  wut  ye  got  ? 
(He  '11  hev  some  upland  plover  like  as  not.) 
Wai,  them  's  real  nice  uns,  an  '11  eat  A  1, 
Ef  I  can  stop  their  bein'  over-done  ; 
Nothin'  riles  me  (I  pledge  my  fastin'  word) 
Like  cookin'  out  the  natur'  of  a  bird  ; 
(Obed,  you  pick  'em  out  o'  sight  an'  sound, 
Your   ma'am    don't   love   no   feathers    cluttrm' 

round ;) 

Jes'  scare  'em  with  the  coals,  —  thet  's  my  idee.' 
Then,  turning  suddenly  about  on  me, 
*  Wai,  Square,  I  guess  so.     Callilate  to  stay  ? 
I  '11  ask  Mis'  Weeks  ;  'bout  thet  it 's  hern  to  say.' 

"  Well,  there  I  lingered  all  October  through, 
In  that  sweet  atmosphere  of  hazy  blue, 
So  leisurely,  so  soothing,  so  forgiving, 
That    sometimes    makes    New    England   fit   for 

living. 

I  watched  the  landscape,  erst  so  granite  glum, 
Bloom  like  the  south  side  of  a  ripening  plum, 
And  each  rock-maple  on  the  hillside  make 
His  ten  days'  sunset  doubled  in  the  lake  ; 
The  very  stone  walls  draggling  up  the  hills 
Seemed  touched,  and  wavered  in  their  roundhead 

wills. 

Ah  !  there  's  a  deal  of  sugar  in  the  sun  ! 
Tap  me  in  Indian  summer,  I  should  run 
A  juice  to  make  rock-candy  of,  —  but  then 
We  get  such  weather  scarce  one  year  in  ten. 


160  F1TZ  ADAM'S  STORY. 

11  There  was  a  parlor  in  the  house,  a  room 
To  make  you  shudder  with  its  prudish  gloom. 
The  furniture  stood  round  with  such  an  air, 
There  seemed  an  old  maid's  ghost  in  every  chair, 
Which  looked  as  it  had  scuttled  to  its  place 
And  pulled  extempore  a  Sunday  face, 
Too  smugly  proper  for  a  world  of  sin, 
Like  boys  on  whom  the  minister  comes  in. 
The  table,  fronting  you  with  icy  stare, 
Strove  to  look  witless  that  its  legs  were  bare, 
While  the  black  sofa  with  its  horse-hair  pall 
Gloomed  like  a  bier  for  Comfort's  funeral. 
Each  piece  appeared  to  do  its  chilly  best 
To  seem  an  utter  stranger  to  the  rest, 
As  if  acquaintanceship  were  deadly  sin, 
Like  Britons  meeting  in  a  foreign  inn. 
Two  portraits  graced  the  wall  in  grimmest  truth, 
Mister  and  Mistress  W.  in  their  youth,  — 
New  England  youth,  that  seems  a  sort  of  pill, 
Half  wish-I-dared,  half  Edwards  on  the  Will, 
Bitter  to  swallow,  and  which  leaves  a  trace 
Of  Calvinistic  cholic  on  the  face. 
Between  them,  o'er  the  mantel,  hung  in  state 
Solomon's  temple,  done  in  copperplate  ; 
Invention  pure,  but  meant,  we  may  presume, 
To  give  some  Scripture  sanction  to  the  room. 
Facing  this  last,  two  samplers  you  might  see, 
Each,  with  its  urn  and  stiffly-weeping  tree, 
Devoted  to  some  memory  long  ago 
More  faded  than  their  lines  of  worsted  woe ; 


FITZ  ADAM'S  STORY.  161 

Cut  paper  decked  their  frames  against  the  flies. 
Though  none  e'er  dared  an  entrance  who  were 

wise, 

And  bushed  asparagus  in  fading  green 
Added  its  shiver  to  the  franklin  clean. 

"  When   first   arrived,    I    chilled  a  half -hour 

there, 

Nor  dared  deflower  with  use  a  single  chair ; 
I  caught  no  cold,  yet  flying  pains  could  find 
For  weeks  in  me,  —  a  rheumatism  of  mind. 
One  thing  alone  imprisoned  there  had  power 
To  hold  me  in  the  place  that  long  half-hour : 
A  scutcheon  this,  a  helm-surmounted  shield, 
Three  griffins  argent  on  a  sable  field  ; 
A  relic  of  the  shipwrecked  past  was  here, 
And  Ezra  held  some  Old -World  lumber  dear. 
Nay,  do  not  smile ;  I  love  this  kind  of  thing, 
These  cooped  traditions  with  a  broken  wing, 
This  freehold  nook  in  Fancy's  pipe-blown  ball, 
This  less  than  nothing  that  is  more  than  all ! 
Have  I  not  seen  sweet  natures  kept  alive 
Amid  the  humdrum  of  your  business  hive, 
Undowered  spinsters  shielded  from  all  harms, 
By  airy  incomes  from  a  coat  of  arms  ?  " 

He  paused  a  moment,  and  his  features  took 
The  flitting  sweetness  of  that  inward  look 
I  hinted  at  before  ;  but,  scarcely  seen, 
It  shrank  for  shelter  'neath  his  harder  mien, 


162  FITZ  ADAM'S  STORY. 

And,  rapping  his  black  pipe  of  ashes  clear, 
He  went  on  with  a  self-derisive  sneer : 
"  No  doubt  we  make  a  part  of  God's  design, 
And  break  the  forest-path  for  feet  divine  ; 
To  furnish  foothold  for  this  grand  prevision 
Is  good,  and  yet  —  to  be  the  mere  transition, 
That,  you  will  say,  is  also  good,  though  I 
Scarce  like  to  feed  the  ogre  By-and-by. 
Raw  edges  rasp  my  nerves ;  my  taste  is  wooed 
By  things  that  are,  not  going  to  be,  good, 
Though  were  I  what  I  dreamed  two  lustres  gone, 
I  'd  stay  to  help  the  Consummation  on, 
Whether  a  new  Rome  than  the  old  more  fair, 
Or  a  deadflat  of  rascal-ruled  despair  ; 
But  my  skull  somehow  never  closed  the  suture 
That  seems  to  knit  yours  firmly  with  the  future, 
So  you  11  excuse  me  if  I  'ra  sometimes  fain 
To  tie  the  past's  warm  nightcap  o'er  my  brain  ; 
I  'm  quite  aware  't  is  not  in  fashion  here, 
But  then  your  northeast  winds  are  so  severe  ! 

"  But  to  my  story  :  though  't  is  truly  naught 
But  a  few  hints  in  Memory's  sketchbook  caught, 
And  which  may  claim  a  value  on  the  score 
Of  calling  back  some  scenery  now  no  more. 
Shall  I  confess  ?     The  tavern's  only  Lar 
Seemed  (be  not  shocked  !)    its   homely-featured 

bar. 

Here  dozed  a  fire  of  beechen  logs,  that  bred 
Strange  fancies  in  its  embers  golden-red, 


FITZ  ADAM'S  STORY.  163 

And  nursed  the  loggerhead  whose  hissing  dip, 
Timed  by  nice  instinct,  creamed  the  mug  of  flip 
That   made   from    mouth   to   mouth   its    genial 

round, 

Nor  left  one  nature  wholly  winter-bound  ; 
Hence  dropt  the  tinkling  coal  all  mellow-ripe 
For  Uncle  Reuben's  talk-extinguished  pipe  ; 
Hence  rayed  the  heat,  as  from  an  in-door  sun, 
That  wooed  forth  many  a  shoot  of  rustic  fun. 
Here  Ezra  ruled  as  king  by  right  divine  ; 
No  other  face  had  such  a  wholesome  shine, 
No  laugh  like  his  so  full  of  honest  cheer  ; 
Above  the  rest  it  crowed  like  Chanticleer. 

"In  this  one  room  his  dame  you  never  saw, 
Where  reigned  by  custom  old  a  Salic  law ; 
Here  coatless  lolled  he  on  his  throne  of  oak, 
And  every  tongue  paused  midway  if  he  spoke. 
Due  mirth  he  loved,  yet  was  his  sway  severe ; 
No  blear-eyed  driveller  got  his  stagger  here  ; 
*  Measure  was  happiness  ;  who  wanted  more, 
Must  buy  his  ruin  at  the  Deacon's  store  ; ' 
None  but  his  lodgers  after  ten  could  stay, 
Nor  after  nine  on  eves  of  Sabbath-day. 
He  had  his  favorites  and  his  pensioners, 
The  same  that  gypsy  Nature  owns  for  hers  : 
Loose-ended  souls,  whose  skills  bring  scanty  gold, 
And  whom  the  poor-house  catches  when  they  're 

old; 
Rude  country-minstrels,  .men  who  doctor  kine, 


164  F1TZ  ADAM'S  STORY. 

Or  graft,  and,  out  of  scions  ten,  save  nine ; 

Creatures  of  genius  they,  but  never  meant 

To  keep  step  with  the  civic  regiment. 

These  Ezra  welcomed,  feeling  in  his  mind 

Perhaps  some  motions  of  the  vagrant  kind ; 

These  paid  no  money,  yet  for  them  he  drew 

Special  Jamaica  from  a  tap  they  knew. 

And,  for  their  feelings,  chalked  behind  the  door 

With  solemn  face  a  visionary  score. 

This  thawed  to  life  in  Uncle  Reuben's  throat 

A  torpid  shoal  of  jest  and  anecdote, 

Like   those  queer  fish   that    doze  the    droughts 

away, 

And  wait  for  moisture,  wrapt  in  sun-baked  clay  ; 
This  warmed  the  one-eyed  fiddler  to  his  task, 
Perched  in  the  corner  on  an  empty  cask, 
By  whose  shrill  art  rapt  suddenly,  some  boor 
Rattled  a  double-shuffle  on  the  floor ; 
'  Hull's  Victory '  was,  indeed,  the  favorite  air, 
Though    *  Yankee    Doodle '    claimed   its    proper 

share. 

"  'T  was  there  I  caught  from  Uncle  Reuben's 

lips, 

In  dribbling  monologue  'twixt  whiffs  and  sips, 
The  story  I  so  long  have  tried  to  tell ; 
The  humor  coarse,  the  persons  common,  —  well, 
From  Nature  only  do  I  love  to  paint, 
Whether  she  send  a  satyr  or  a  saint ; 
To  me  Sincerity  's  the  one  thing  good, 
Soiled  though  she  be  and  lost  to  maidenhood. 


F1TZ  ADAM1 8  STORY.  165 

Quompegan  is  a  town  some  ten  miles  south 

From  Jethro,  at  Nagumscot  river-mouth, 

A  seaport  town,  and  makes  its  title  good 

With  lumber  and  dried  fish  and  eastern  wood. 

Here  Deacon  Bitters  dwelt  and  kept  the  Store, 

The  richest  man  for  many  a  mile  of  shore  ; 

In  little  less  than  everything  dealt  he, 

From  meeting-houses  to  a  chest  of  tea  ; 

So  dextrous  therewithal  a  flint  to  skin, 

He  could  make  profit  on  a  single  pin  ; 

In  business  strict,  to  bring  the  balance  true 

He  had  been  known  to  bite  a  fig  in  two, 

And  change  a  board-nail  for  a  shingle-nail. 

All  that  he  had  he  ready  held  for  sale, 

His  house,  his  tomb,  whate'er  the  law  allows, 

And  he  had  gladly  parted  with  his  spouse. 

His  one  ambition  still  to  get  and  get, 

He  would  arrest  your  very  ghost  for  debt. 

His   store  looked  righteous,  should  the  Parson 

come, 

But  in  a  dark  back-room  he  peddled  rum, 
And  eased  Ma'am  Conscience,  if  she  e'er  would 

scold, 

By  christening  it  with  water  ere  he  sold. 
A  small,  dry  man  he  was,  who  wore  a  queue, 
And    one   white    neckcloth   all    the   week-days 

through,  — 

On  Monday  white,  by  Saturday  as  dun 
As  that  worn  homeward  by  the  prodigal  son. 
His  frosted  earlocks,  striped  with  foxy  brown, 


166  FITZ  ADAM'S  STORY. 

Were  braided  up  to  hide  a  desert  crown ; 

His  coat  was  brownish,  black  perhaps  of  yore  ; 

In  summer-time  a  banyan  loose  he  wore ; 

His  trousers  short,  through  many  a  season  true, 

Made  no  pretence  to  hide  his  stockings  blue ; 

A  waistcoat  buff  his  chief  adornment  was, 

Its  porcelain  buttons  rimmed  with  dusky  brass. 

A  deacon  he,  you  saw  it  in  each  limb, 

And  well  he  knew  to  deacon-off  a  hymn, 

Or  lead  the  choir  through  all  its  wandering  woes 

With  voice  that  gathered  unction  in  his  nose, 

Wherein  a  constant  snuffle  you  might  hear, 

As  if  with  him  't  were  winter  all  the  year. 

At  pew-head  sat  he  with  decorous  pains, 

In  sermon-time  could  foot  his  weekly  gains, 

Or,  with  closed  eyes  and  heaven-abstracted  air, 

Could  plan  a  new  investment  in  long-prayer. 

A  pious  man,  and  thrifty  too,  he  made 

The  psalms  and  prophets  partners  in  his  trade, 

And  in  his  orthodoxy  straitened  more 

As  it  enlarged  the  business  at  his  store ; 

He  honored  Moses,  but,  when  gain  he  planned, 

Had  his  own  notion  of  the  Promised  Land. 

"  Soon  as  the  winter  made  the  sledding  good, 
From  far  around  the  farmers  hauled  him  wood, 
For  all  the  trade  had  gathered  'neath  his  thumb. 
He  paid  in  groceries  and  New  England  rum, 
Making  two  profits  with  a  conscience  clear,  — 
Cheap  all  he  bought,  and  all  he  paid  with  dear. 


F1TZ  ADAM'S  STORY.  167 

With  his  own  mete-wand  measuring  every  load, 
Each  somehow  had  diminished  on  the  road ; 
An  honest  cord  in  Jethro  still  would  fail 
By  a  good  foot  upon  the  Deacon's  scale, 
And,  more  to  abate  the  price,  his  gimlet  eye 
Would  pierce  to  cat-sticks  that  none  else  could 

spy; 

Yet  none  dared  grumble,  for  no  farmer  yet 
But  New  Year  found  him  in  the  Deacon's  debt. 

"  While  the  first  snow  was  mealy  under  feet, 
A   team   drawled    creaking   down    Quompegan 

street. 
Two  cords  of  oak  weighed  down  the  grinding 

sled, 

And  cornstalk  fodder  rustled  overhead  ; 
The  oxen's  muzzles,  as  they  shouldered  through, 
Were  silver-fringed ;  the  driver's  own  was  blue 
As  the  coarse  frock  that  swung  below  his  knee. 
Behind  his  load  for  shelter  waded  he  ; 
His  mittened  hands  now  on  his  chest  he  beat, 
Now  stamped  the  stiffened  cowhides  of  his  feet, 
Hushed  as  a  ghost's;  his   armpit   scarce    could 

hold 

The  walnut  whipstock  slippery-bright  with  cold. 
What  wonder  if,  the  tavern  as  he  past, 
He  looked  and  longed,  and  stayed  his  beasts  at 

last, 

Who  patient  stood  and  veiled  themselves  in  steam 
While  he  explored  the  bar-room's  ruddy  gleam  ? 


1G8  FITZ  ADAM'S  STORY. 

"  Before  the  fire,  in  want  of  thought  profound, 
There  sat  a  brother-townsman  weather-hound : 
A  sturdy  churl,  crisp-headed,  bristly-eared, 
Red  as  a  pepper ;  'twixt  coarse  brows  and  beard 
His  eyes  lay  ambushed,  on  the  watch  for  fools, 
Clear,  gray,  and  glittering  like   two  bay-edged 

pools ; 

A  shifty  creature,  with  a  turn  for  fun, 
Could  swap  a  poor  horse  for  a  better  one,  — 
He  'd  a  high-stepper  always  in  his  stall ; 
Liked  far  and  near,  and  dreaded  therewithal. 
To  him  the  in-comer,  '  Perez,  how  d'  ye  do  ? ' 
*  Jest  as  I  'm  mind  to,  Obed  ;  how  do  you  ?  ' 
Then,  his  eyes  twinkling  such  swift  gleams  as  run 
Along  the  levelled  barrel  of  a  gun 
Brought  to  his  shoulder  by  a  man  you  know 
Will  bring  his  game  down,  he  continued,  '  So, 
I  s'pose  you  're  haulin'  wood  ?     But  you  're  too 

late; 

The  Deacon 's  off ;  Old  Splitfoot  could  n't  wait ; 
He  made  a  bee-line  las'  night  in  the  storm 
To  where  he  won't  need  wood  to  keep  him  warm. 
'Fore  this  he 's  treasurer  of  a  fund  to  train 
Young  imps  as  missionaries ;  hopes  to  gain 
That  way  a  contract  that  he  has  in  view 
For  fireproof  pitchforks  of  a  pattern  new. 
It  must  have  tickled  him,  all  drawbacks  weighed, 
To  think  he  stuck  the  Old  One  in  a  trade ; 
His  soul,  to  start  with,  was  n't  worth  a  carrot, 
And  all  he  'd  left  'ould  hardly  serve  to  swear  at.' 


FITZ  ADAM'S   STORY.  169 

"  By  this  time  Obed  had  his  wits  thawed  out? 
And,  looking  at  the  other  half  in  doubt, 
Took  off  his  fox-skin  cap  to  scratch  his  head, 
Donned  it  again,  and  drawled  forth,  l  Mean  he  's 

dead  ? ' 

*  Jesso  ;  he  's  dead  and  t'  other  d  that  toilers 
With  folks  that  never  love  a  thing  but  dollars. 
He  pulled  up  stakes  last  evening,  fair  and  square, 
And  ever  since  there  's  been  a  row  Down  There. 
The  minute  the  old  chap  arrived,  you  see, 
Comes  the  Boss-devil  to  him,  and  says  he, 
"  What  are  you  good  at  ?     Little  enough,  I  fear ; 
We  callilate  to  make  folks  useful  here." 
"  Well,"  says  old  Bitters,  "  I  expect  I  can 
Scale  a  fair  load  of  wood  with  e'er  a  man." 
"  Wood  we   don't  deal  in ;  but  perhaps  you  '11 

suit, 

Because  we  buy  our  brimstone  by  the  foot : 
Here,  take  this  measurin'-rod,  as  smooth  as  sin, 
And  keep  a  reckonin'  of  what  loads  comes  in. 
You  '11  not  want  business,  for  we  need  a  lot 
To  keep  the  Yankees  that  you  send  us  hot ; 
At  firin'  up  they  're  barely  half  as  spry 
As  Spaniards  or  Italians,  though  they  're  dry ; 
At  first  we  have  to  let  the  draught  on  stronger, 
But,   heat  'em   through,   they   seem   to   hold   it 

longer." 

" '  Bitters  he  took  the  rod,  and  pretty  soon 
A  teamster  comes,  whistling  an  ex-psalm  tune. 


170  F1TZ  ADAM'S  STORY. 

A  likelier  chap  you  would  n't  ask  to  see, 

No  different,  but  his  limp,  from  you  or  me '  — 

1  No     different,    Perez !      Don't    your    memory 

fail? 

Why,  where  in  thunder  was  his  horns  and  tail  ? ' 
4  They  're  only  worn  by  some  old-fashioned  pokes  ; 
They  mostly  aim  at  looking  just  like  folks. 
Sech  things  are  scarce  as  queues  and  top-boots 

here ; 

'T  would  spoil  their  usefulness  to  look  too  queer. 
Ef  you  could  always  know  'em  when  they  come, 
They  'd  get  no  purchase  on  you :  now  be  mum. 
On  come  the  teamster,  smart  as  Davy  Crockett, 
Jinglin'  the  red-hot  coppers  in  his  pocket, 
And   clost  behind,  ('t  was  gold-dust,   you  'd  ha' 

sworn,) 

A  load  of  sulphur  yallower  'n  seed-corn  ; 
To  see  it  wasted  as  it  is  Down  There 
Would  make  a  Friction-Match  Co.  tear  its  hair ! 
"  Hold  on !  "  says  Bitters,  "  stop  right  where  you 

be; 

You  can't  go  in  athout  a  pass  from  me." 
"All  right,"  says  t'  other,  "  only  step  round  smart ; 
I  must  be  home  by  noon-time  with  the  cart." 
Bitters  goes  round  it  sharp-eyed  as  a  rat, 
Then  with  a  scrap  of  paper  on  his  hat 
Pretends  to  cipher.     "  By  the  public  staff, 
That  load  scarce  rises  twelve  foot  and  a  half." 
"  There  's  fourteen  foot  and  over,"  says  the  driver, 
"  Worth  twenty  dollars,  ef  it 's  worth  a  stiver  ; 


FITZ  ADAM'S  STORY.  171 

Good  fourth-proof   brimstone,  that  '11  make  'em 

squirm,  — 

I  leave  it  to  the  Headman  of  the  Firm ; 
After  we  masure  it,  we  always  lay 
Some  on  to  allow  for  settlin'  by  the  way. 
Imp  and  full-grown,  I  've  carted  sulphur  here, 
And  given  fair  satisfaction,  thirty  year." 
With  that  they  fell  to  quarrellin'  so  loud 
That  in  five  minutes  they  had  drawed  a  crowd, 
And  afore  long  the  Boss,  who  heard  the  row, 
Comes  elbowin'  in  with  "  What 's   to  pay  here 

now  ?  " 

Both  parties  heard,  the  measurin'-rod  he  takes, 
And  of  the  load  a  careful  survey  makes. 
"  Sence  I  've  bossed  the  business  here,"  says  he, 
"  No  fairer  load  was  ever  seen  by  me.'' 
Then,  turnin'  to  the  Deacon,  "  You  mean  cus, 
None  of  your  old  Quompegan  tricks  with  us ! 
They  won't  do  here :  we  're  plain  old-fashioned 

folks, 

And  don't  quite  understand  that  kind  o'  jokes. 
I  know  this  teamster,  and  his  pa  afore  him, 
And  the  hard-working  Mrs.  D.  that  bore  him ; 
He  would  n't  soil  his  conscience  with  a  lie, 
Though  he  might  get  the  custom-house  thereby. 
Here,  constable,  take  Bitters  by  the  queue, 
And  clap  him  into  furnace  ninety-two, 
And  try  this  brimstone  on  him  ;  if  he  's  bright, 
He  '11  find  the  masure  honest  afore  night. 
He  is  n't  worth  his  fuel,  and  I  '11  bet 
The  parish  oven  has  to  take  him  yet !  " ' 


172  F1TZ  ADAM'S  STORY. 

11  Tliis  is  my  tale,  heard  twenty  years  ago 
From  Uncle  Reuben,  as  the  logs  burned  low, 
Touching  the  walls  and  ceiling  with  that  bloom 
That  makes  a  rose's  calyx  of  a  room. 
I  could  not  give  his  language,  wherethrough  ran 
The  gamy  flavor  of  the  bookless  man 
Who  shapes  a  word  before  the  fancy  cools, 
As  lonely  Crusoe  improvised  his  tools. 
I  liked  the  tale,  —  't  was  like  so  many  told 
By  Rutebeuf  and  his  brother  Trouveres  bold ; 
Nor  were  the  hearers  much  unlike  to  theirs, 
Men  unsophisticate,  rude-nerved  as  bears. 
Ezra  is  gone  and  his  large-hearted  kind, 
The  landlords  of  the  hospitable  mind  ; 
Good  Warriner  of  Springfield  was  the  last ; 
An  inn  is  now  a  vision  of  the  past ; 
One  yet-surviving  host  my  mind  recalls,  — 
You  '11  find  him  if  you  go  to  Trenton  Falls." 


THE   ORIGIN  OF  DIDACTIC   POETRY. 

WHEN  wise  Minerva  still  was  young 

And  just  the  least  romantic, 
Soon  after  from  Jove's  head  she  flung 

That  preternatural  antic, 
'T  is  said,  to  keep  from  idleness 

Or  flirting,  those  twin  curses, 
She  spent  her  leisure,  more  or  less, 

In  writing  po ,  no,  verses. 

How  nice  they  were !  to  rhyme  with  far 

A  kind  star  did  not  tarry ; 
The  metre,  too,  was  regular 

As  schoolboy's  dot  and  carry ; 
And  full  they  were  of  pious  plums, 

So  extra-super-moral,  — 
For  sucking  Virtue's  tender  gums 

Most  tooth-enticing  coral. 

A  clean,  fair  copy  she  prepares, 
Makes  sure  of  moods  and  tenses, 

With  her  own  hand,  —  for  prudence  spares 
A  man-  (or  woman-)  -uensis  ; 

Complete,  and  tied  with  ribbons  proud, 
She  hinted  soon  how  cosy  a 
(173) 


174     THE   ORIGIN  OF  DIDACTIC  POETRY. 

Treat  it  would  be  to  read  them  loud 
After  next  day's  Ambrosia. 

The  Gods  thought  not  it  would  amuse 

So  much  as  Homer's  Odyssees, 
But  could  not  very  well  refuse 

The  properest  of  Goddesses ; 
So  all  sat  round  in  attitudes 

Of  various  dejection, 
As  with  a  hem  !  the  queen  of  prudes 

Began  her  grave  prelection. 

At  the  first  pause  Zeus  said,  "  Well  sung ! . 

I  mean  —  ask  Phrebus,  —  he  knows." 
Says  Phoebus,  "  Zounds  !  a  wolf 's  among 

Admetus's  merinos ! 
Fine  !  very  fine  !  but  I  must  go ; 

They  stand  in  need  of  me  there ; 
Excuse  me !  "  snatched  his  stick,  and  so 

Plunged  down  the  gladdened  ether. 

With  the  next  gap,  Mars  said,  "  For  me 

Don't  wait,  —  naught  could^  be  finer, 
But  I  'm  engaged  at  half  past  three,  — 

A  fight  in  Asia  Minor  !  " 
Then  Venus  lisped,   "  I  'm  sorely  tried, 

These  duty-calls  are  vip'rous ; 
But  I  must  go  ;   I  have  a  bride 

To  see  about  in  Cyprus." 


THE  ORIGIN   OF  DIDACTIC  POETRY.    175 

Then  Bacchus,  —  "I  must  say  good  bye, 

Although  my  peace  it  jeopards  ; 
I  meet  a  man  at  four,  to  try 

A  well-broke  pair  of  leopards." 
His  words  woke  Hermes.     "  Ah !  "  he  said, 

"  I  so  love  moral  theses !  " 
Then  winked  at  Hebe,  who  turned  red, 

And  smoothed  her  apron's  creases. 

Just  then  Zeus  snored,  —  the  Eagle  drew 

His  head  the  wing  from  under ; 
Zeus  snored,  —  o'er  startled  Greece  there  flew 

The  many-volumed  thunder. 
Some  augurs  counted  nine,  some,  ten ; 

Some  said  't  was  war,  some,  famine, 
And  all,  that  other-minded  men 

Would  get  a  precious . 

Proud  Pallas  sighed,  "  It  will  not  do  ; 

Against  the  Muse  I  Ve  sinned,  oh !  " 
And  her  torn  rhymes  sent  flying  through 

Olympus's  back  window. 
Then,  packing  up  a  peplus  clean, 

She  took  the  shortest  path  thence, 
And  opened,  with  a  mind  serene, 

A  Sunday-school  in  Athens. 

The  verses  ?     Some  in  ocean  swilled, 
Killed  every  fish  that  bit  to  'em ; 


176      THE   ORIGIN  OF  DIDACTIC  POETRY. 

Some  Galen  caught,  and,  when  distilled, 
Found  morphine  the  residuum ; 

But  some  that  rotted  on  the  earth 
Sprang  up  again  in  copies, 

And  gave  two  strong  narcotics  birth, 
Didactic  verse  and  poppies. 

Years  after,  when  a  poet  asked 

The  Goddess's  opinion, 
As  one  whose  soul  its  wings  had  tasked 

In  Art's  clear-aired  dominion, 
"  Discriminate,"  she  said,  "  betimes  ; 

The  Muse  is  unforgiving ; 
Put  all  your  beauty  in  your  rhymes, 

Your  morals  in  your  living." 


THE  FLYING   DUTCHMAN. 

DON'T  believe  in  the  Flying  Dutchman  ? 

I  've  known  the  fellow  for  years ; 
My  button  I  've  wrenched  from  his  clutch,  man 

I  shudder  whenever  he  nears ! 

He  's  a  Rip  van  Winkle  skipper, 

A  Wandering  Jew  of  the  sea, 
Who  sails  his  bedevilled  old  clipper 

In  the  wind's  eye,  straight  as  a  bee. 

Back  topsails  !  you  can't  escape  him  ; 

The  man-ropes  stretch  with  his  weight, 
And  the  queerest  old  toggeries  drape  him, 

The  Lord  knows  how  long  out  of  date ! 

Like  a  long-disembodied  idea, 

(A  kind  of  ghost  plentiful  now,) 
He  stands  there ;  you  fancy  you  see  a 

Coeval  of  Teniers  or  Douw. 

He  greets  you  ;  would  have  you  take  letters : 
You  scan  the  addresses  with  dread, 

While  he  mutters  his  donners  and  wetters,  — 
They  're  all  from  the  dead  to  the  dead ! 

(177) 


178  THE  FLYING  DUTCHMAN. 

You  seem  taking  time  for  reflection, 

But  the  heart  fills  your  throat  with  a  jam, 

As  you  spell  in  each  faded  direction 
An  ominous  ending  in  dam. 

Am  I  tagging  my  rhymes  to  a  legend  ? 

That  were  changing  green  turtle  to  mock  : 
No,  thank  you  !     I  've  found  out  which  wedge-end 

Is  meant  for  the  head  of  a  hlock. 

The  fellow  I  have  in  my  mind's  eye 

Plays  the  old  Skipper's  part  here  on  shore, 

And  sticks  like  a  burr,  till  he  finds  I 
Have  got  just  the  gauge  of  his  bore. 

This  postman  'twixt  one  ghost  and  t'  other, 
With  last  dates  that  smell  of  the  mould, 

I  have  met  him  (O  man  and  brother, 
Forgive  me !)  in  azure  and  gold. 

In  the  pulpit  I  've  known  of  his  preaching, 

Out  of  hearing  behind  the  time, 
Some  statement  of  Balaam's  impeaching, 

Giving  Eve  a  due  sense  of  her  crime. 

I  have  seen  him  some  poor  ancient  thrashing 
Into  something  (God  save  us !)  more  dry, 

With  the  Water  of  Life  itself  washing 
The  life  out  of  earth,  sea,  and  sky. 


THE  FLYING  DUTCHMAN.  179 

O  dread  fellow-mortal,  get  newer 

Despatches  to  carry,  or  none  ! 
We  're  as  quick  as  the  Greek  and  the  Jew  were 

At  knowing  a  loaf  from  a  stone. 

Till  the  couriers  of  God  fail  in  duty, 
We  sha'n't  ask  a  mummy  for  news, 

Nor  sate  the  soul's  hunger  for  beauty 

With  your  drawings  from  casts  of  a  Muse. 


CREDIDIMUS    JOVEM   REGNARE. 

O  DAYS  endeared  to  every  Muse, 
When  nobody  had  any  Views, 
Nor,  while  the  cloudscape  of  his  mind 
By  every  breeze  was  new  designed, 
Insisted  all  the  world  should  see 
Camels  or  whales  where  none  there  be  ! 

0  happy  days,  when  men  received 
From  sire  to  son  what  all  believed, 
And  left  the  other  world  in  bliss, 
Too  busy  with  bedevilling  this  ! 

Beset  by  doubts  of  every  breed 
In  the  last  bastion  of  my  creed, 
With  shot  and  shell  for  Sabbath-chime, 

1  watch  the  storming-party  climb, 
Panting  (their  prey  in  easy  reach), 

To  pour  triumphant  through  the  breach 
In  walls  that  shed  like  snowflakes  tons 
Of  missiles  from  old-fashioned  guns, 
But  crumble  'neath  the  storm  that  pours 
All  day  and  night  from  bigger  bores. 
There,  as  I  hopeless  watch  and  wait 
The  last  life-crushing  coil  of  Fate, 
Despair  finds  solace  in  the  praise 
(180) 


CREDID1MUS  JOVEM  REGNARE.        181 

Of  those  serene  dawn-rosy  days 
Ere  microscopes  had  made  us  heirs 
To  large  estates  of  doubts  and  snares, 
By  proving  that  the  title-deeds, 
Once  all-sufficient  for  men's  needs, 
Are  palimpsests  that  scarce  disguise 
The  tracings  of  still  earlier  lies, 
Themselves  as  surely  written  o'er 
An  older  fib  erased  before. 

So  from  these  days  I  fly  to  those 

That  in  the  landlocked  Past  repose, 

Where  no  rude  wind  of  doctrine  shakes 

From  bloom-flushed  boughs  untimely  flakes  ; 

Where  morning's  eyes  see  nothing  strange, 

No  crude  perplexity  of  change, 

And  morrows  trip  along  their  ways 

Secure  as  happy  yesterdays. 

Then  there  were  rulers  who  could  trace 

Through  heroes  up  to  gods  their  race, 

Pledged  to  fair  fame  and  noble  use 

By  veins  from  Odin  filled  or  Zeus, 

And  under  bonds  to  keep  divine 

The  praise  of  a  celestial  line. 

Then  priests  could  pile  the  altar's  sods, 

With  whom  gods  spake  as  they  with  gods, 

And  everywhere  from  haunted  earth 

Broke  springs  of  wonder,  that  had  birth 

In  depths  divine  beyond  the  ken 

And  fatal  scrutiny  of  men ; 


182         CREDIDIMUS  JOVEM  REGNARE. 

Then  hills  and  groves  and  streams  and  seas 

Thrilled  with  immortal  presences, 

Not  too  ethereal  for  the  scope 

Of  human  passion's  dream  or  hope. 

Now  Pan  at  last  is  surely  dead, 

And  King  No-Credit  reigns  instead, 

Whose  officers,  morosely  strict, 

Poor  Fancy's  tenantry  evict, 

Chase  the  last  Genius  from  the  door, 

And  nothing  dances  any  more. 

Nothing  ?     Ah,  yes,  our  tahles  do, 

Drumming  the  Old  One's  own  tattoo, 

And,  if  the  oracles  are  dumb, 

Have  we  not  mediums  ?     Why  be  glum  ? 

Fly  thither  ?     Why,  the  very  aw 
ls  full  of  hindrance  and  despair  ! 
Fly  thither  ?     But  I  cannot  fly  ; 
My  doubts  enmesh  me  if  I  try,  — 
Each  lilliputian,  but,  combined, 
Potent  a  giant's  limbs  to  bind. 
This  world  and  that  are  growing  dark; 
A  huge  interrogation  mark, 
The  Devil's  crook  episcopal, 
Still  borne  before  him  since  the  Fall, 
Blackens  with  its  ill-omened  sign 
The  old  blue  heaven  of  faith  benign. 
Whence?      Whither?      Wherefore?      How 
Which?  Why? 


CREDIDIMUS  JOVEM  REGNARE.        183 

All  ask  at  once,  all  wait  reply. 

Men  feel  old  systems  cracking  under  'em  ; 

Life  saddens  to  a  mere  conundrum 

Which  once  Religion  solved,  but  she 

Has  lost  —  has  Science  found  ?  —  the  key. 

What  was  snow-bearded  Odin,  trow, 
The  mighty  hunter  long  ago, 
Whose  horn  and  hounds  the  peasant  hears 
Still  when  the  Northlights  shake  their  spears  ? 
Science  hath  answers  twain,  I  've  heard  ; 
Choose  which  you  will,  nor  hope  a  third  ; 
Whichever  box  the  truth  be  stowed  in, 
There  's  not  a  sliver  left  of  Odin. 
Either  he  was  a  pinchbrowed  thing, 
With  scarcely  wit  a  stone  to  fling, 
A  creature  both  in  size  and  shape 
Nearer  than  we  are  to  the  ape, 
Who  hung  sublime  with  brat  and  spouse 
By  tail  prehensile  from  the  boughs, 
And,  happier  than  his  maimed  descendants, 
The  culture-curtailed  ^dependents, 
Could  pluck  his  cherries  with  both  paws, 
And  stuff  with  both  his  big-boned  jaws  ; 
Or  else  the  core  his  name  enveloped 
Was  from  a  solar  myth  developed, 
Which,  hunted  to  its  primal  shoot, 
Takes  refuge  in  a  Sanskrit  root, 
Thereby  to  instant  death  explaining 
The  little  poetry  remaining. 


184        CREDIDIMUS  JOVEM  REGNARE. 

Try  it  with  Zeus,  't  is  just  the  same  ; 
The  thing  evades,  we  hug  a  name  ; 
Nay,  scarcely  that,  —  perhaps  a  vapor 
Born  of  some  atmospheric  caper. 
All  Lempriere's  fables  blur  together 
In  cloudy  symbols  of  the  weather, 
And  Aphrodite  rose  from  frothy  seas 
But  to  illustrate  such  hypotheses. 
With  years  enough  behind  his  back, 
Lincoln  will  take  the  selfsame  track, 
And  prove,  hulled  fairly  to  the  cob, 
A  mere  vagary  of  Old  Prob. 
Give  the  right  man  a  solar  myth, 
And  he  '11  confute  the  sun  therewith. 

They  make  things  admirably  plain, 
But  one  hard  question  will  remain  : 
If  one  hypothesis  you  lose, 
Another  in  its  place  you  choose, 
But,  your  faith  gone,  O  man  and  brother, 
Whose  shop  shall  furnish  you  another  ? 
One  that  will  wash,  I  mean,  and  wear, 
And  wrap  us  warmly  from  despair  ? 
While  they  are  clearing  up  our  puzzles, 
And  clapping  prophylactic  muzzles 
On  the  Acteeon's  hounds  that  sniff 
Our  devious  track  through  But  and  If, 
Would  they  'd  explain  away  the  Devil 
And  other  facts  that  won't  keep  level, 
But  rise  beneath  our  feet  or  fail, 
A  reeling  ship's  deck  in  a  gale  ! 


CREDIDIMUS  JOVEM  REGNARE.        185 

God  vanished  long  ago,  iwis, 
A  mere  subjective  synthesis  ; 
A  doll,  stuffed  out  with  hopes  and  fears, 
Too  homely  for  us  pretty  dears, 
Who  want  one  that  conviction  carries, 
Last  make  of  London  or  of  Paris. 
He  gone,  I  felt  a  moment's  spasm, 
But  calmed  myself  with  Protoplasm, 
A  finer  name,  and,  what  is  more, 
As  enigmatic  as  before  ; 
Greek,  too,  and  sure  to  fill  with  ease 
Minds  caught  in  the  Symplegades 
Of  soul  and  sense,  life's  two  conditions, 
Each  baffled  with  its  own  omniscience. 
The  men  who  labor  to  revise 
Our  Bibles  will,  I  hope,  be  wise, 
And  print  it  without  foolish  qualms 
Instead  of  God  in  David's  psalms : 
Noll  had  been  more  effective  far 
Could  he  have  shouted  at  Dunbar, 
"  Rise,  Protoplasm  !  "     No  dourest  Scot 
Had  waited  for  another  shot. 

And  yet  I  frankly  must  confess 

A  secret  unforgivingness, 

And  shudder  at  the  saving  chrism 

Whose  best  New  Birth  is  Pessimism  ; 

My  soul  —  I  mean  the  bit  of  phosphorus 

That  fills  the  place  of  what  that  was  for  us  — 

Can't  bid  its  inward  bores  defiance 


186        CREDIDIMUS  JOVEM  REGNARE. 

With  the  new  nursery-tales  of  science. 
What  profits  me,  though  doubt  by  doubt, 
As  nail  by  nail,  be  driven  out, 
When  every  new  one,  like  the  last, 
Still  holds  my  coffin-lid  as  fast  ? 
Would  I  find  thought  a  moment's  truce, 
Give  me  the  young  world's  Mother  Goose, 
With  life  and  joy  in  every  limb, 
The  chimney-corner  tales  of  Grimm  ! 

Our  dear  and  admirable  Huxley 
Cannot  explain  to  me  why  ducks  lay, 
Or,  rather,  how  into  their  eggs 
Blunder  potential  wings  and  legs 
With  will  to  move  them  and  decide 
Whether  in  air  or  lymph  to  glide. 
Who  gets  a  hair's-breadth  on  by  showing 
That  Something  Else  set  all  agoing  ? 
Farther  and  farther  back  we  push 
From  Moses  and  his  burning  bush ; 
Cry,  "Art  Thou  there  ?  "     Above,  below, 
All  nature  mutters  yes  and  no  ! 
'T  is  the  old  answer :  we  're  agreed 
Being  from  Being  must  proceed, 
Life  be  Life's  source.     I  might  as  well 
Obey  the  meeting-house's  bell, 
And  listen  while  Old  Hundred  pours 
Forth  through  the  summer-opened  doors, 
From  old  and  young.     I  hear  it  yet, 
Swelled  by  bass-viol  and  clarinet, 


CREDIDIMUS  JOVEM  REGNARE.        187 

While  the  gray  minister,  with  face 
Radiant,  let  loose  his  noble  bass. 
If  Heaven  it  reached  not,  yet  its  roll 
Waked  all  the  echoes  of  the  soul, 
And  in  it  many  a  life  found  wings 
To  soar  away  from  sordid  things. 
Church  gone  and  singers  too,  the  song 
Sings  to  me  voiceless  all  night  long, 
Till  my  soul  beckons  me  afar, 
Glowing  and  trembling  like  a  star. 
Will  any  scientific  touch 
With  my  worn  strings  achieve  as  much  ? 

I  don't  object,  not  I,  to  know 

My  sires  were  monkeys,  if  't  was  so ; 

I  touch  my  ear's  collusive  tip 

And  own  the  poor-relationship. 

That  apes  of  various  shapes  and  sizes 

Contained  their  germs  that  all  the  prizes 

Of  senate,  pulpit,  camp,  and  bar  win 

May  give  us  hopes  that  sweeten  Darwin. 

Who  knows  but  from  our  loins  may  spring 

(Long   hence)    some   winged   sweet  -  throated 

thing 

As  much  superior  to  us 
As  we  to  Cynocephalus  ? 

This  is  consoling,  but,  alas, 

It  wipes  no  dimness  from  the  glass 

Where  I  am  flattening  my  poor  nose, 


188        CREDIDIMUS  JOVEM  REGNARE. 

In  hope  to  see  beyond  my  toes. 
Though  I  accept  my  pedigree, 
Yet  where,  pray  tell  me,  is  the  key 
That  should  unlock  a  private  door 
To  the  Great  Mystery,  such  no  more  ? 
Each  offers  his,  but  one  nor  all 
Are  much  persuasive  with  the  wall 
That  rises  now,  as  long  ago, 
Between  I  wonder  and  I  know, 
Nor  will  vouchsafe  a  pin-hole  peep 
At  the  veiled  Isis  in  its  keep. 
Where  is  no  door,  I  but  produce 
My  key  to  find  it  of  no  use. 
Yet  better  keep  it,  after  all, 
Since  Nature  's  economical, 
And  who  can  tell  but  some  fine  day 
(If  it  occur  to  her)  she  may, 
In  her  good-will  to  you  and  me, 
Make  door  and  lock  to  match  the  key  ? 


TEMPORA  MUTANTUR. 

THE  world  turns  mild  ;  democracy,  they  say, 
Rounds  the  sharp  knobs  of  character  away, 
And  no  great  harm,  unless  at  grave  expense 
Of  what  needs  edge  of  proof,  the  moral  sense  ; 
For  man  or  race  is  on  the  downward  path 
Whose  fibre  grows  too  soft  for  honest  wrath, 
And  there  's  a  subtle  influence  that  springs 
From  words  to  modify  our  sense  of  things. 
A  plain  distinction  grows  obscure  of  late  : 
Man,  if  he  will,  may  pardon  ;  but  the  State 
Forgets  its  function  if  not  fixed  as  Fate. 
So  thought  our  sires  :  a  hundred  years  ago, 
If  men  were  knaves,  why,  people  called  them  so, 
And  crime  could  see  the  prison-portal  bend 
Its  brow  severe  at  no  long  vista's  end. 
In  those  days  for  plain  things  plain  words  would 

serve  ; 
Men  had   not   learned  to    admire    the  graceful 

swerve 

Wherewith  the  ^Esthetic  Nature's  genial  mood 
Makes  public  duty  slope  to  private  good  ; 
No  muddled  conscience  raised  the  saving  doubt ; 
A  soldier  proved  unworthy  was  drummed  out, 
An  officer  cashiered,  a  civil  servant 
(189) 


190  T EM  FOR  A   MUTANTUR. 

(No  matter  though  his  piety  were  fervent) 
Disgracefully  dismissed,  and  through  the  land 
Each  bore  for  life  a  stigma  from  the  brand 
Whose  far-heard  hiss  made  others  more  averse 
To  take  the  facile  step  from  bad  to  worse. 
The  Ten  Commandments  had  a  meaning  then, 
Felt  in  their  bones  by  least  considerate  men, 
Because  behind  them  Public  Conscience  stood, 
And  without  wincing  made  their  mandates  good. 
But  now  that  "  Statesmanship  "  is  just  a  way 
To  dodge  the  primal  curse  and  make  it  pay, 
Since  office  means  a  kind  of  patent  drill 
To  force  an  entrance  to  the  Nation's  till, 
And  peculation  something  rather  less 
Risky  than  if  you  spelt  it  with  an  s  ; 
Now  that  to  steal  by  law  is  grown  an  art, 
"Whom   rogues  the  sires,  their  milder  sons    call 

smart, 

And  "  slightly  irregular  "  dilutes  the  shame 
Of  what  had  once  a  somewhat  blunter  name. 
With  generous  curve  we  draw  the  moral  line  : 
Our  swindlers  are  permitted  to  resign  ; 
Their  guilt  is  wrapped  in  deferential  names, 
And  twenty  sympathize  for  one  that  blames. 
Add  national  disgrace  to  private  crime, 
Confront  mankind  with  brazen  front  sublime, 
Steal  but  enough,  the  world  is  unsevere,  — 
Tweed  is  a  statesman,  Fisk  a  financier ; 
Invent  a  mine,  and  be  —  the  Lord  knows  what ; 
Secure,  at  any  rate,  with  what  you  Ve  got. 
The  public  servant  who  has  stolen  or  lied, 


TEMP  OR  A  MUTANTUR.  191 

If  called  on,  may  resign  with  honest  pride  : 
As  unjust  favor  put  him  in,  why  doubt 
Disfavor  as  unjust  has  turned  him  out  ? 
Even  if  indicted,  what  is  that  but  fudge 
To  him  who  counted-in  the  elective  judge  ? 
Whitewashed,  he  quits  the  politician's  strife 
At  ease  in  mind,  with  pockets  filled  for  life : 
His  "  lady  "  glares  with  gems  whose  vulgar  blaze 
The    poor   man   through   his   heightened    taxes 

pays, 

Himself  content  if  one  huge  Kohinoor 
Bulge  from  a  shirt-front  ampler  than  before, 
But  not  too  candid,  lest  it  haply  tend 
To  rouse  suspicion  of  the  People's  Friend. 
A  public  meeting,  treated  at  his  cost, 
Resolves  him  back  more  virtue  than  he  lost ; 
With  character  regilt  he  counts  his  gains  ; 
What 's  gone  was  air,  the  solid  good  remains  ; 
For  what  is  good,  except  what  friend  and  foe 
Seem  quite  unanimous  in  thinking  so, 
The  stocks  and  bonds  which,  in  our  age  of  loans, 
Replace  the  stupid  pagan's  stocks  and  stones  ? 
With  choker  white,  wherein  no  cynic  eye 
Dares  see  idealized  a  hempen  tie, 
At  parish-meetings  he  conducts  in  prayer, 
And  pays  for  missions  to  be  sent  elsewhere  ; 
On  'Change  respected,  to  his  friends  endeared, 
Add  but  a  Sunday-school-class,  he  's  revered, 
And  his  too  early  tomb  will  not  be  dumb 
To  point  a  moral  for  our  youth  to  come. 
1872. 


IN   THE   HALF-WAY   HOUSE. 


AT  twenty  we  fancied  the  blest  Middle  Ages 

A  spirited  cross  of  romantic  and  grand, 
All  templars  and  minstrels  and  ladies  and  pages, 

And  love  and  adventure  in  Otitre-Mer  land  ; 
But  ah,  where  the  youth  dreamed  of  building  a 

minster, 
The  man  takes  a  pew  and  sits  reckoning  his 

pelf, 
And  the  Graces  wear  fronts,  the  Muse  thins  to  a 

spinster, 

When   Middle-Age  stares  from  one's  glass  at 
oneself ! 

II. 

Do  you  twit  me  with  days  when  I  had  an  Ideal, 
And    saw  the  sear  future   through  spectacles 

green  ? 
Then   find   me  some  charm,  while  I  look  round 

and  see  all 

These  fat  friends  of  forty,  shall  keep  me  nine 
teen  ; 

Should  we  go  on  pining  for  chaplets  of  laurel 
(192) 


IN  THE  HALF-WAY  HOUSE.  193 

Who  've  paid   a  perruquier  for  mending  our 

thatch, 
Or,  our  feet  swathed  in  baize,  with  our  Fate  pick 

a  quarrel, 
If,  instead  of  cheap  bay-leaves,  she  sent  a  dear 

scratch  ? 

in. 

We  called  it  our  Eden,  that  small  patent-baker, 
When  life  was  half  moonshine  and  half  Mary 

Jane  ; 

But  the  butcher,  the  baker,  the  candlestick-ma 
ker  !  - 

Did  Adam  have  duns  and  slip  down  a  back- 
lane  ? 

Nay,  after  the  Fall  did  the  modiste  keep  coming 
With  last  styles  of  fig-leaf  to  Madam  Eve's 

bower  ? 

Did  Jubal,  or  whoever  taught  the  girls  thrum 
ming, 
Make  the  patriarchs  deaf  at  a  dollar  the  hour  ? 

IV. 

As  I  think  what  I  was,  I  sigh  Desunt  nonnulla  ! 
Years  are  creditors  Sheridan's  self  could  not 

bilk; 
But  then,  as  my  boy  says,  "  What  right  has  a  ful- 

lah 

To  ask  for  the  cream,  when  himself  spilt  the 
milk  ?  " 


194  IN  THE  HALF-WAY  HOUSE. 

Perhaps  when  you  're  older,  my  lad,  you  '11  dis 
cover 
The  secret  with  which  Auld  Lang  Syne  there 

is  gilt,  — 

Superstition  of  old  man,  maid,  poet,  and  lover,  — 
That  cream  rises  thickest  on  milk  that  was 
spilt! 

v. 

We  sailed  for  the  moon,  but,  in  sad  disillusion, 
Snug  under  Point  Comfort  are  glad  to  make 

fast, 

And  strive  (sans  our  glasses)  to  make  a  confusion 
Twixt  our  rind  of  green  cheese  and  the  moon 

of  the  past. 
Ah,    Might-have-been,  Could-have-been,   Would- 

have-been  !  rascals, 

He  's  a  genius  or  fool  whom  ye  cheat  at  two- 
score, 
And  the  man  whose  boy-promise  was  likened  to 

Pascal's 
Is  thankful  at  forty  they  don't  call  him  bore  ! 

VI. 

With   what  fumes  of   fame  was   each  confident 

pate  full ! 
How   rates    of   insurance  should  rise    on    the 

Charles ! 
And  which    of   us    now    would    not   feel  wisely 

grateful, 


IN   THE  HALF-WAY  HOUSE.  195 

If  his  rhymes  sold  as  fast  as  the  Emblems  of 

Quarles  ? 
E'en   if  won,  what's  the  good  of  Life's  medals 

and  prizes  ? 

The  rapture  's  in  what  never  was  or  is  gone  ; 
That  we  missed  them  makes  Helens  of  plain  Ann 

Elizys, 
For  the  goose  of  To-day  still  is  Memory's  swan. 

VII. 

And  yet  who  would  change  the  old  dream  for 

new  treasure  ? 
Make  not  youth's  sourest  grapes  the  best  wine 

of  our  life  ? 

Need  he  reckon  his  date  by  the  Almanac's  mea 
sure 

Who  is  twenty  life-long  in  the  eyes  of  his  wife  ? 
Ah,  Fate,  should  I  live  to  be  nonagenarian, 
Let  me  still  take  Hope's  frail  I.  O.  U.s  upon 

trust, 

Still  talk  of  a  trip  to  the  Islands  Macarian, 
And  still  climb  the  dream-tree  for  —  ashes  and 
dust! 


AT  THE  BURNS  CENTENNIAL. 

JANUARY,  1859. 


A  HUNDRED  years  !  they  're  quickly  fled, 

With  all  their  joy  and  sorrow  ; 
Their  dead  leaves  shed  upon  the  dead, 

Their  fresh  ones  sprung  by  morrow  ! 
And  still  the  patient  seasons  bring 

Their  change  of  sun  and  shadow  ; 
New  birds  still  sing  with  every  spring, 

New  violets  spot  the  meadow. 

n. 

A  hundred  years  !   and  Nature's  powers 

No  greater  grown  nor  lessened  ! 
They  saw  no  flowers  more  sweet  than  ours, 

No  fairer  new  moon's  crescent. 
Would  she  but  treat  us  poets  so, 

So  from  our  winter  free  us, 
And  set  our  slow  old  sap  aflow 

To  sprout  in  fresh  ideas  ! 

in. 

Alas,  think  I,  what  worth  or  parts 
Have  brought  me  here  competing, 

(196) 


AT  THE  BURNS   CENTENNIAL.  197 

To  speak  what  starts  in  myriad  hearts 

With  Burns's  memory  beating  ! 
Himself  had  loved  a  theme  like  this  ; 

Must  I  be  its  entomber  ? 
No  pen  save  his  but 's  sure  to  miss 

Its  pathos  or  its  humor. 

IV. 

As  I  sat  musing  what  to  say, 

And  how  my  verse  to  number, 
Some  elf  in  play  passed  by  that  way, 

And  sank  my  lids  in  slumber  ; 
And  on  my  sleep  a  vision  stole, 

Which  I  will  put  in  metre, 
Of  Burns's  soul  at  the  wicket-hole 

Where  sits  the  good  Saint  Peter. 

v. 

The  saint,  methought,  had  left  his  post 

That  day  to  Holy  Willie, 
Who  swore,  "  Each  ghost  that  comes  shall  toast 

In  brunstane,  will  he,  nill  he ; 
There  's  nane  need  hope  with  phrases  fine 

Their  score  to  wipe  a  sin  frae  ; 
I  '11  chalk  a  sign,  to  save  their  tryin',  — 

A  hand  (S)  and  <  Vide  infra  !  '  " 

VI. 

Alas  !  no  soil 's  too  cold  or  dry 
For  spiritual  small  potatoes, 


198          AT   THE  BURNS   CENTENNIAL. 

Scrimped  natures,  spry  the  trade  to  ply 

Of  diaboli  advocatus  ; 
Who  lay  bent  pins  in  the  penance-stool 

Where  Mercy  plumps  a  cushion, 
Who  've  just  one  rule  for  knave  and  fool, 

It  saves  so  much  confusion  ! 

VII. 

So  when  Burns  knocked,  Will  knit  his  brows, 

His  window  gap  made  scanter, 
And  said,  "  Go  rouse  the  other  house  ; 

We  lodge  no  Tarn  O'Shanter  !  " 
"  We  lodge  !  "  laughed  Burns.    "  Now  well  I  see 

Death  cannot  kill  old  nature  ; 
No  human  flea  but  thinks  that  he 

May  speak  for  his  Creator  ! 

VIII. 

"  But,  Willie,  friend,  don't  turn  me  forth, 

Auld  Clootie  needs  no  gauger ; 
And  if  on  earth  I  had  small  worth, 

You  've  let  in  worse,  I  'se  wager !  " 
"  Na,  nane  has  knockit  at  the  yett 

But  found  me  hard  as  whunstane  ; 
There  's  chances  yet  your  bread  to  get 

Wi  Auld  Nick,  gaugin'  brunstane." 

IX. 

Meanwhile,  the  Unco'  Guid  had  ta'en 
Their  place  to  watch  the  process, 


AT  THE  BURNS   CENTENNIAL.  199 

Flattening  in  vain  on  many  a  pane 

Their  disembodied  noses. 
Remember,  please,  't  is  all  a  dream ; 

One  can't  control  the  fancies 
Through  sleep  that  stream  with  wayward  gleam. 

Like  midnight's  boreal  dances. 

x. 

Old  Willie's  tone  grew  sharp  's  a  knife  : 

"  In  primiS)  I  indite  ye, 
For  makin'  strife  wi'  the  water  o'  life, 

And  preferrin'  aqua  vitce  !  " 
Then  roared  a  voice  with  lusty  din, 

Like  a  skipper's  when  't  is  blowy, 
"  If  that's,  a  sin,  I'd  ne'er  got  in, 

As  sure  as  my  name  's  Noah  !  " 

XI. 

Baulked,  Willie  turned  another  leaf,  — 

"  There  's  many  here  have  heard  ye, 
To  the  pain  and  grief  o'  true  belief, 

Say  hard  things  o'  the  clergy  !  " 
Then  rang  a  clear  tone  over  all,  — 

"  One  plea  for  him  allow  me  : 
I  once  heard  call  from  o'er  me,  '  Saul, 

Why  persecutest  thou  me  ?  " 

XII. 

To  the  next  charge  vexed  Willie  turned. 
And,  sighing,  wiped  his  glasses : 


200          AT  THE  BURNS   CENTENNIAL. 

"  I  'm  much  concerned  to  find  ye  yearned 

O'er-warmly  tow'rd  the  lasses  !  " 
Here  David  sighed  ;   poor  Willie's  face 
Lost  all  its  self-possession  : 

'•  I  leave  this  case  to  God's  own  grace  ; 
It  baffles  my  discretion  !  " 

XIII. 

Then  sudden  glory  round  me  broke, 

And  low  melodious  surges 
Of  wings  whose  stroke  to  splendor  woke 

Creation's  farthest  verges ; 
A  cross  stretched,  ladder-like,  secure 

From  earth  to  heaven's  own  portal, 
Whereby  God's  poor,  with  footing  sure, 

Climbed  up  to  peace  immortal. 

XIV. 

I  heard  a  voice  serene  and  low 

(With  my  heart  I  seemed  to  hear  it) 
Fall  soft  and  slow  as  snow  on  snow, 

Like  grace  of  the  heavenly  spirit  ; 
As  sweet  as  over  new-born  son 

The  croon  of  new-made  mother, 
The  voice  begun,  "  Sore  tempted  one  !  " 

Then,  pausing,  sighed,  "  Our  brother ! 

xv. 

4 '  If  not  a  sparrow  fall,  unless 

The  Father  sees  and  knows  it, 


AT  THE  BURNS   CENTENNIAL.          201 

Think  !  recks  he  less  his  form  express, 

The  soul  his  own  deposit  ? 
If  only  dear  to  Him  the  strong, 

That  never  trip  nor  wander, 
Where  were  the  throng  whose  morning  song 

Thrills  His  blue  arches  yonder  ? 

xvi. 

'•  Do  souls  alone  clear-eyed,  strong-kneed, 

To  Him  true  service  render, 
And  they  who  need  His  hand  to  lead, 

Find  they  His  heart  untender  ? 
Through  all  your  various  ranks  and  fates 

He  opens  doors  to  duty, 
And  he  that  waits  there  at  your  gates 

Was  servant  of  His  Beauty. 

XVII. 

"  The  Earth  must  richer  sap  secrete, 

(Could  ye  in  time  but  know  it !) 
Must  juice  concrete  with  fiercer  heat, 

Ere  she  can  make  her  poet ; 
Long  generations  go  and  come, 

At  last  she  bears  a  singer, 
For  ages  dumb,  of  senses  numb 

The  compensation-bringer ! 

XVIII. 

"  Her  cheaper  broods  in  palaces 
She  raises  under  glasses, 


202          AT   THE  BURNS   CENTENNIAL. 

But  souls  like  these,  heav'n's  hostages, 
Spring  shelterless  as  grasses  : 

They  share  Earth's  blessing  and  her  bane, 
The  common  sun  and  shower ; 

What  makes  your  pain  to  them  is  gain, 
Your  weakness  is  their  power. 

XIX. 

"  These  larger  hearts  must  feel  the  rolls 

Of  stormier-waved  temptation  ; 
These  star-wide  souls  between  their  poles 

Bear  zones  of  tropic  passion. 
He  loved  much !  —  that  is  gospel  good, 

Howe'er  the  text  you  handle  ; 
From  common  wood  the  cross  was  hewed, 

By  love  turned  priceless  sandal. 

xx. 

"  If  scant  his  service  at  the  kirk, 

He  paters  heard  and  aves 
From  choirs  that  lurk  in  hedge  and  birk, 

From  blackbird  and  from  mavis  ; 
The  cowering  mouse,  poor  unroofed  thing, 

In  him  found  Mercy's  angel ; 
The  daisy's  ring  brought  every  spring 

To  him  Love's  fresh  evangel ! 


XXI. 


"  Not  he  the  threatening  texts  who  deals 
Is  highest  'mong  the  preachers, 


AT  THE  BURNS  CENTENNIAL.         203 

But  he  who  feels  the  woes  and  weals 
Of  all  God's  wandering  creatures. 

He  doth  good  work  whose  heart  can  find 
The  spirit  'neath  the  letter  ; 

Who  makes  his  kind  of  happier  mind, 
Leaves  wiser  men  and  better. 

XXII. 

"  They  make  Religion  be  abhorred 

Who  round  with  darkness  gulf  her, 
And  think  no  word  can  please  the  Lord 

Unless  it  smell  of  sulphur. 
Dear  Poet-heart,  that  childlike  guessed 

The  Father's  loving  kindness, 
Come  now  to  rest !     Thou  didst  His  hest, 

If  haply  't  was  in  blindness  !  " 

XXIII. 

Then  leapt  heaven's  portals  wide  apart, 

And  at  their  golden  thunder 
With  sudden  start  I  woke,  my  heart 

Still  throbbing-full  of  wonder. 
"  Father,"  I  said,  "  't  is  known  to  Thee 

How  Thou  thy  Saints  preparest ; 
But  this  I  see,  —  Saint  Charity 

Is  still  the  first  and  fairest !  " 

XXIV. 

Dear  Bard  and  Brother !  let  who  may 
Against  thy  faults  be  railing, 


204          AT  THE  BURNS  CENTENNIAL. 

(Though  far,  I  pray,  from  us  be  they 

That  never  had  a  failing  !) 
One  toast  I  '11  give,  and  that  not  long, 

Which  thou  wouldst  pledge  if  present,  — 
To  him  whose  song,  in  nature  strong, 

Makes  man  of  prince  and  peasant ! 


IN   AN   ALBUM. 

THE  misspelt  scrawl,  upon  the  wall 
By  some  Pompeian  idler  traced, 
In  ashes  packed  (ironic  fact !) 
Lies  eighteen  centuries  uneffaced, 
While  many  a  page  of  bard  and  sage, 
Deemed  once  mankind's  immortal  gain, 
Lost  from  Time's  ark,  leaves  no  more  mark 
Than  a  keel's  furrow  through  the  main. 

O  Chance  and  Change  !  our  buzz's  range 
Is  scarcely  wider  than  a  fly's  ; 
Then  let  us  play  at  fame  to-day, 
To-morrow  be  unknown  and  wise  ; 
And  while  the  fair  beg  locks  of  hair, 
And  autographs,  and  Lord  knows  what, 
Quick !  let  us  scratch  our  moment's  match, 
Make  our  brief  blaze,  and  be  forgot ! 

Too  pressed  to  wait,  upon  her  slate 
Fame  writes  a  name  or  two  in  doubt ; 
Scarce  written,  these  no  longer  please, 
And  her  own  finger  rubs  them  out : 

(205) 


206  IN  AN  ALBUM. 

It  may  ensue,  fair  girl,  that  you 
Years  hence  this  yellowing  leaf  may  see, 
And  put  to  task,  your  memory  ask 
In  vain,  "  This  Lowell,  who  was  he  ?  " 


AT  THE  COMMENCEMENT  DINNER, 
1866,  IN  ACKNOWLEDGING  A  TOAST 
TO  THE  SMITH  PROFESSOR. 

I  RISE,  Mr.  Chairman,  as  both  of  us  know, 
With  the  impromptu  I  promised  you  three  weeks 

ago, 
Dragged  up  to  my  doom  by  your  might  and  my 

mane, 

To  do  what  I  vowed  I  'd  do  never  again ; 
And   I  feel  like  your  good  honest  dough  when 

possest 

By  a  stirring,  impertinent  devil  of  yeast. 
"  You   must  rise,"  says  the  leaven.     "  I  can't,'' 

says  the  dough ; 
"  Just  examine  my  bumps,  and  you  '11  see  it 's  no 

go-" 
"  But  you  must,"  the  tormentor  insists,  "  'tis  all 

right ; 
You  must  rise  when  I  bid  you,  and,  what 's  more, 

be  light." 

'Tis  a   dreadful   oppression,   this   making   men 

speak 
What  they  're  sure  to  be  sorry  for  all  the  next 

week ; 

(207) 


208    AT  Till::   COMMENCEMENT  DINNER. 

This  asking  some  poor  stick,  like  Aaron's,  to  bud 
Into  eloquence,  pathos,  or  wit  in  cold  blood, 
As  if  the  dull  brain  that  you  vented  your  spite  on 
Could  be  got,  like  an  ox,    by   mere   poking,  to 
Brighton. 

They  say  it  is  wholesome  to  rise  with  the  sun, 
And  I  dare  say  it  may  be  if  not  overdone  ; 
(I  think  it  was  Thomson  who  made  the  remark 
'T  was  an  excellent  thing  in  its  way  —  for  a  lark ;) 
But  to  rise  after  dinner  and  look  down  the  meet 
ing 

On  a  distant  (as  Gray  calls  it)  prospect  of  Eating, 
With  a  stomach  half  full  and  a  cerebrum  hollow 
As  the  tortoise-shell  ere  it  was  strung  for  Apollo, 
Under  contract  to  raise  anerithmon  gelasma 
With  rhymes  so  hard  hunted  they  gasp  with  the 

asthma, 

And  jokes  not  much  younger  than  Jethro's  phy 
lacteries, 

Is  something  I  leave  you  yourselves  to  charac 
terize. 

I  've  a  notioji,  I  think,  of  a  good  dinner  speech. 
Tripping  light  as  a  sandpiper  over  the  beach, 
Swerving  this  way  and  that  as  the  wave  of  the 

moment 
Washes  out  its  slight  trace  with  a  dash  of  whim's 

foam  on  't, 
And  leaving  on  memory's  rim  just  a  sense 


AT  THE   COMMENCEMENT  DINNER.     209 

Something  graceful  had  gone  by,  a  live  present 

tense ; 

Not  poetry,  —  no,  not  quite  that,  but  as  good, 
A  kind  of  winged  prose  that  could  fly  if  it  would. 
'T  is  a  time  for  gay  fancies  as  fleeting  and  vain 
As  the  whisper  of   foam-beads   on  fresh-poured 

champagne, 

Since  dinners  were  not  perhaps  strictly  designed 
For  maneuvering  the  heavy  dragoons  of  the  mind. 
When  I  hear  your  set  speeches  that  start  with  a 

pop, 

Then  wander  and  maunder,  too  feeble  to  stop, 
With  a  vague  apprehension  from  popular  rumor 
There  used  to  be  something   by  mortals   called 

humor, 
Beginning   again  when   you   thought  they  were 

done, 

Respectable,  sensible,  weighing  a  ton, 
And  as  near  to  the  present  occasions  of  men 
As  a  Fast  Day  discourse  of  the  year  eighteen  ten, 
I  —  well,  I  sit  still,  and  my  sentiments  smother, 
For  am  I  not  also  a  bore  and  a  brother  ? 

And   a  toast,  —  what   should   that  be  ?     Light, 

airy,  and  free, 

The  foam-Aphrodite  of  Bacchus's  sea, 
A  fancy-tinged  bubble,  an  orbed  rainbow-stain, 
That  floats  for  an  instant  'twixt  goblet  and  brain  ; 
A   breath-born  perfection,  half  something,    half 

naught, 


210    AT  THE  COMMENCEMENT  DINNER. 

And   breaks    if   it   strike   the    hard    edge    of   a 

thought. 
Do  you  ask  me  to  make  such  ?     Ah  no,  not  so 

simple  ; 

Ask  Apelles  to  paint  you  the  ravishing  dimple 
Whose     shifting    enchantment     lights     Venus's 

cheek, 

And  the  artist  will  tell  you  his  skill  is  too  weak ; 
Once  fix  it,  't  is  naught,  for  the  charm  of  it  rises 
From  the  sudden  bopeeps  of  its  smiling  surprises. 

I  Ve  tried  to  define  it,  but  what  mother's  son 
Could  ever  yet  do  what  he  knows  should  be  done  ? 
My  rocket  has  burst,  and  I  watch  in  the  air 
Its   fast-fading   heart's-blood    drop  back    in    de 
spair  ; 

Yet  one  chance  is  left  me,  and,  if  I  am  quick, 
I  can  palm  off,  before  you  suspect  me,  the  stick. 

Now   since    I  've    succeeded  —  I    pray   do    not 

frown  — 

To  Ticknor's  and  Longfellow's  classical  gown, 
And  profess  four  strange  languages,  which,  luck 
less  elf, 

I  speak  like  a  native  (of  Cambridge)  myself, 
Let  me  beg,  Mr.  President,  leave  to  propose 
A  sentiment  treading  on  nobody's  toes, 
And  give,  in  such  ale  as  with  pump-handles  we 

brew, 

Their  memory  who  saved  us  from  all  talking  He 
brew,  — 


AT  THE  COMMENCEMENT  DINNER.    211 

A  toast  that  to  deluge  with  water  is  good, 

For  in  Scripture  they  come  in  just  after  the  flood  : 

I  give  you  the  men  but  for  whom,  as  I  guess, 

sir, 

Modern  languages  ne'er  could  have  had  a  profes 
sor, 

The  builders  of  Babel,  to  whose  zeal  the  lungs 
Of     the    children    of    men    owe    confusion    of 

tongues ; 

And  a  name  all-embracing  I  couple  therewith, 
Which   is   that   of  my  founder  —  the  late  Mr. 
Smith. 


A  PARABLE. 

AN  ass  munched  thistles,  while  a  nightingale 
From  passion's  fountain  flooded  all  the  vale. 
"  Hee-haw !  "  cried  he,  "  I  hearken,"  as  who  knew 
For  such  ear-largess  humble  thanks  were  due. 
"Friend,"  said  the  winged  pain,  "in  vain  you 

bray, 

Who  tunnels  bring,  not  cisterns,  for  my  lay  ; 
None  but  his  peers  the  poet  rightly  hear, 
Nor  mete  we  listeners  by  their  length  of  ear.'* 
COLONNA,  ITALY,  1852. 

(212) 


V. 

EPIGEAMS. 


SAYINGS. 

1. 

IN  life's  small  things  be  resolute  and  great 

To  keep  thy  muscle  trained  :  know'st  thou  when 

Fate 

Thy  measure  takes,  or  when  she  '11  say  to  thee, 
"  I  find  thee  worthy  ;  do  this  deed  for  me  "  ? 

2. 

A  camel-driver,  angry  with  his  drudge, 

Beating  him,  called  him  hunchback  ;  to  the  hind 

Thus  spake   a   dervish:    "Friend,    the  Eternal 

Judge 
Dooms  not  His  work,  but  ours,  the  crooked  mind." 

3. 

Swiftly  the  politic  goes :  is  it  dark  ?  —  he  bor 
rows  a  lantern  ; 

Slowly  the  statesman  and  sure,  guiding  his  steps 
by  the  stars. 


"Where  lies  the  capital,  pilgrim,  seat  of  who 

governs  the  Faithful  ?  " 
"  Thither   my  footsteps   are   bent :    it  is   where 

Saadi  is  lodged." 

(215) 


216  EPIGRAMS. 


INSCRIPTIONS. 

FOB   A   BELL    AT    CORNELL    UNIVERSITY. 

I  CALL  as  fly  the  irrevocable  hours, 
Futile  as  air  or  strong  as  fate  to  make 

Your  lives  of  sand  or  granite  ;  awful  powers, 
Even  as  men  choose,  they  either  give  or  take. 


FOR  A  MEMORIAL  WINDOW  TO  SIR  WALTER  RA 
LEIGH,  SET  UP  IN  ST.  MARGARET'S,  WESTMIN 
STER,  BY  AMERICAN  CONTRIBUTORS. 

THE  New  World's  sons,  from  England's  breasts 
we  drew 

Such  milk  as  bids  remember  whence  we  came ; 
Proud  of  her  Past  wherefrom  our  Present  grew, 

This  window  we  inscribe  with  Raleigh's  name. 


PROPOSED    FOR   A   SOLDIERS'    AND   SAILORS* 
MONUMENT    IN    BOSTON. 

To  those  who  died  for  her  on  land  and  sea, 
That  she  might  have  a  country  great  and  free, 
Boston  builds  this  :  build  ye  her  monument 
In  lives  like  theirs,  at  duty's  summons  spent. 


EPIGRAMS.  217 


A  MISCONCEPTION. 

B,  TAUGHT  by  Pope  to  do  his  good  by  stealth, 
'Twixt  participle  and  noun  no  difference  feeling, 
In  office  placed  to  serve  the  Commonwealth, 
Does  himself  all  the  good  he  can  by  stealing. 


THE   BOSS. 

SKILLED  to  pull  wires,  he  baffles  Nature's  hope, 
Who  sure  intended  him  to  stretch  a  rope. 


SUN-WORSHIP. 

IF  I  were  the  rose  at  your  window, 
Happiest  rose  of  its  crew, 
Every  blossom  I  bore  would  bend  inward, 
They  'd  know  where  the  sunshine  grew. 


CHANGED  PERSPECTIVE. 

FULL  oft  the  pathway  to  her  door 
I  Ve  measured  by  the  selfsame  track, 
Yet  doubt  the  distance  more  and  more, 
'T  is  so  much  longer  coming  back ! 


218  EPIGRAMS. 


WITH  A  PAIR  OF  GLOVES  LOST  IN  A 
WAGER. 

WE  wagered,  she  for  sunshine,  I  for  rain, 
And  I  should  hint  sharp  practice  if  I  dared  ; 
For  was  not  she  beforehand  sure  to  gain 
Who  made  the  sunshine  we  together  shared  ? 


SIXTY-EIGHTH   BIRTHDAY. 

As  life  runs  on,  the  road  grows  strange 
With  faces  new,  and  near  the  end 
The  milestones  into  headstones  change, 
'Neath  every  one  a  friend. 


